Associations between coronary artery disease, aneurysm and ectasia

Aim: Investigation the frequency and contribution of coronary artery aneurysm/ectasia in addition to their correlation with coronary artery disease (CAD).

Material and methods: We retrospectively evaluated the coronary angiography records of 6500 adult consecutive patients, and 418 of them were met inclusion criteria and used in the present study. The CAD was defined as the presence of angiographic coronary stenosis of > 50% of the luminal diameter in no less than one of the epicardial coronary arteries. Moreover, the prevalence and features of the coronary artery aneurysm/ectasia among the cases with and without CAD were compared.

Results: We observed coronary artery aneurysm (CAA) and ectasia (CAE) in 6.6% of the patients with significant CAD (+), and 6.1% of the patients with significant CAD (–) (p = 0.2). The percentage of coronary artery aneurysms was significantly higher in CAD (+) patients than in CAD (–) patients (0.8% vs. 0.4%, p = 0.015). The percentage of coronary artery ectasia showed no variation between CAD (+) patients and CAD (–) patients (5.8% vs. 5.7%, p = 0.47). The frequency of spotting aneurysm on a single coronary artery was higher than discerning aneurysm on two or three coronary arteries.

Conclusions: Presence of CAA or CAE cases is often encountered in those who have undergone angiography procedures. Furthermore, CAA and CAE should not be considered as simple dilations of vessels. Further studies are needed to determine the effective procedures for the treatment and prognostic evaluations of the patients with CAA or CAE.