IMAGES IN MEDICINE
Pulmonary artery sling: an unexpected finding on cardiac multidetector CT
Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK
Correspondence to:
Dr E T D Hoey, Diagnostic Centre, Papworth Hospital, Cambridge CB23 3RE, UK; edwardhoey1@gmail.com
Keywords: pulmonary artery sling; cardiac CT; chest pain; congenital; pulmonary artery
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A 38-year-old woman with a 6-month history of breathlessness and intermittent central chest pain was referred for an ECG-gated cardiac CT examination. This excluded significant coronary artery disease, but revealed an unexpected extracardiac finding. The left pulmonary artery had an anomalous origin from the right main pulmonary artery and was seen to hook around and compress the right main bronchus before crossing to the left of the midline between the trachea and oesophagus to form a ring (fig 1). In addition, CT showed the proximal oesophagus to be mildly dilated (fig 2). The patient did not report any dysphagia on further questioning. Volume-rendered images eloquently depicted these findings (fig 3).
Figure 1 Axial CT image at the level of the tracheal bifurcation showing the anomalous origin and retrotracheal course of the left pulmonary artery. MPA, main pulmonary artery; LPA, left pulmonary artery.
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Figure 2 Sagittal CT image in | |||||||||
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