Dear Friends,
I am showing today the leading image of the third webinar. If you haven’t seen them, you can see the first one here and the second one here:
Chest radiograph belongs to a 24-year-old man with occasional episodes of fainting, currently asymptomatic.
What do you see?
Come back on Friday and enjoy the recording of the third webinar with the answer to this case and more information!
Click here to see the answer
Findings: PA chest radiograph shows convexity of the right outline of the middle mediastinum (A, arrow), suggesting dilatation of the ascending aorta. Some of you have mentioned aortic coarctation, which is not a good option because rib notching is not visible, and the aortic knob is unremarkable.
Given the patient´s age, a good possibility is congenital aortic stenosis.
Enhanced sagittal CT reconstruction shows dilatation of the ascending aorta (B, asterisk) and heavy calcification of the aortic valve (B, arrow). Axial CT demonstrated a malformed and calcified aortic valve (C, circle).
Final diagnosis: congenital aortic valve stenosis with post-stenotic dilatation
Congratulations to Renga, who was the first to mention the ascending aorta dilatation.
Teaching point: the middle third of the mediastinum is occupied by the aorta and pulmonary artery. Any mediastinal abnormality in this area should be suspected to have a vascular origin.
You can see on our youtube channel the webinar Prof. Cáceres has prepared discussing this case and others.