Prevalence of noncardiac findings in computed tomography angiography before transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

Objective: This study sought to determine the prevalence of significant and nonsignificant noncardiac findings in patients undergoing preprocedural dual-source CT (DSCT) before transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).

Methods: Patients (n = 204; aged, 80.5 ± 5.1 years; 106 men) underwent preprocedural DSCT of the thoracoabdominal aorta and the pelvic arterial vessels. Noncardiac findings were recorded and categorized as nonsignificant (group A), incidental findings requiring follow-up examinations (group B), and significant findings with a demand for clinical treatment (group C).

Results: In 60 of 204 DSCT examinations (29.4%) no noncardiac findings were observed. Of the remaining 144 examinations (70.6%), 260 had noncardiac findings; 35 of 204 patients (17.1%) had a total of 37 clinically significant noncardiac findings. Eight malignancies were detected; 5 of them were incidentally diagnosed on DSCT and changed patient management. A total of 223 nonsignificant findings were observed in 116 of 204 patients (56.9%; group A), the most frequent findings were pleural effusions or colorectal diverticulosis. The prevalence of incidental and significant findings on DSCT before TAVI increased with patient age (r(2) = 0.69; P = .01).

Conclusion: Significant noncardiac findings are common in patients referred to routine preprocedural DSCT for planning TAVI (17.1%).