RESUMO
PURPOSE: Patients with Marfan syndrome require repeated imaging for monitoring of aortic root aneurysms. Therefore, we evaluated the agreement and reproducibility of cine-MRI and echocardiography measurements of the sinuses of Valsalva in patients with suspected Marfan syndrome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 51 consecutive patients with suspected Marfan syndrome were prospectively examined using cine-MRI and echocardiography. Two readers independently measured aortic root diameters at the level of the sinuses of Valsalva in both cine-MRI and echocardiography. Statistics included intraclass correlation coefficient, Pearson correlation coefficient, Bland-Altman analysis, and two-sided t-test. RESULTS: In 38 of the 51 individuals (74.5â%), the diagnosis of Marfan syndrome was established according to the criteria of the Ghent-2 nosology. Cine-MRI measurements of the sinuses of Valsalva revealed a strong correlation with echocardiography (râ=â0.929), but a statistically significant bias of -1.0 âmm (pâ<â0.001). The mean absolute diameter for sinuses of Valsalva obtained by cine-MRI was 32.3â ± â5.8âmm as compared to 33.4â ± â5.4âmm obtained by echocardiography. Interobserver agreement of measurements of the sinuses of Valsalva was higher for cine-MRI than for echocardiography (pâ=â0.029). CONCLUSION: Despite small, but statistically significant differences in terms of agreement and reproducibility, cine-MRI and echocardiographic measurements of aortic root diameters provide comparable results without a significant clinical difference. Therefore both techniques may be used for monitoring of the aortic root in patients with Marfan syndrome.