Combination of Unicuspid Aortic Valve, Aortic Coarctation, and Aberrant Right Subclavian Artery in a Child: MR Imaging and CTA Findings

Excerpt

Unicuspid aortic valve is a rare, but well-described congenital valve anomaly in the pediatric population. However, series of congenital unicuspid aortic valves in adults are limited. The estimated incidence of congenital unicuspid aortic valve in an adult echocardiographic population was reported to be about 0.02% [1]. It is often discovered during surgery or autopsy and can easily be mistaken for a bicuspid aortic valve, which, in contrast, is a common congenital cardiac anomaly occurring in up to 2% of live births [2, 3]. Multiplanar and biplanar transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) are widely used diagnostic imaging tools for aortic valve abnormalities. Multiplanar TEE is found to be much more sensitive and specific in determining the anomalies [3]. A few cases of unicuspid aortic valve with coexisting anomalies detected by echocardiography have been reported [1, 4]. However, to the best of our knowledge, the combination of unicuspid aortic valve with aortic coarctation and aberrant right subclavian artery has not been reported previously. Furthermore, we assume that this is the first case report depicting magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and computed tomography angiography (CTA) findings of unicuspid aortic valve with coexisting anomalies. …