Aortic Root Enlargement

[Adam3]

I am a 40 year old man in excellent physical condition.   I was diagnosed with Aortic Stenosis as a young child and kept track of throughout my youth.   I have enjoyed a very active lifestyle in both my career and personal life and have never had any health issues that were apparent with regard to getting on my bicyle to race or train for 1-8 hours or getting to work for a nice day or five of stress and nail biting.  

I recently visited an ENT to discuss some discomfort and pressure in my right ear.  I was diagnosed with Minnears Disease and sent for an MRI.   As a result of the MRI and concern over my corotid artery symptomes I was refered to a Cardiologist.   My Echo was done and the doctor was on the phone with me 2 hours later working to schedule an MRI.   He let me know that I had an enlarged aortic root and that I should lay off of the strenuous excercise for the until the MRI results came back and were analyzed.  

I naturally became concerned while researching the condition and called the cardiologis back to ask about he exact diameter recording from the Echo.   He was gone for the day, but the M.A. looked into my file and gave me a number that is stressing me out more than a nice Hammer Session on my bicycle in NYC traffic!  (5.7CM)  

I apologize for not having all the detail that others have but this all came down on me today.   I am looking for some detail that I can research and get a good analytic grasp of my situation.  At this point I am wondering how to discuss this with my wife and while my 20 month old son is bouncing on my knee.  (sorry for the DRAMA)  

Any help is much appreciated!


This discussion is related to aortic root.

[milo_1]

Hi, I'm Colleen. You def. have an aneurysm my friend. Find out if its ascending, descending or dissecting. You def. dont want the dissecting. That's the kind that killed John Ritter and the TV show Hopkins (where I'm going for my surgery) had a lady on there last week with dissecting.  Ascending are the most serious, after 4cm they consider it to be aneurysm. Aneurysm is a ballooning out of major artery leading to (ascending) or from (descending) the heart. My guess is they will want a CT scan, Echo and Cardiac Cath.  I'm having surgery soon. I saw the doc here, but decided to make the 2.5 hr drive to Hopkins.  Read more on my page on this site at
http://www.medhelp.org/user_profiles/show/552012
Let me know how you're doing.
Colleen

[Mel58]

I have the same condition. It is a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers Danlos. The heart part is  from a closely related disorder called Marfans. I am not tall - only 5'4".

[kenkeith]

It is generally recognized that an aorta root greater than 4.0 cm is an aneurism, and at 5.0 surgical intervention begins to be considered.  There is some variation of size depending on the exact location.  At the leaflet level normal dimension is 2.0 - 3.7 cm.  

When considering surgical intervention at 5.0 cm, there are a series of echos 6 months apart to determine if the dimension is growing.  All M-mode values for dimensions with an echo are estimates, but if there is an enlargement blood pressure should be kept as low as possible, and that would rule out any stenuous exercise.