Aortic Root Dilation

[mystery726116]

I was recently diagnosed with aortic root dilation.  I am a petite, 36 year old female with a 3.9cm aortic root.  My cardiologist, who I'm seeing for this, as well as an arrhythmia and a "mass" in my upper chamber, is not really concerned with this finding.  I am concerned based on what I've read and my on-going symptoms.  Am I worried needlessly?  Thanks in advance for your insights.

[kenkeith]

Images in 3D would be appropriate and an MRI, cat scan, transesophogeal echo (TEE) would provide useful information. Thanks for sharing.

[mystery726116]

Thanks for the information, kenkeith.  I've gotten more useful information in 12 hours on this forum than I have in the last 2 months.  My echo was normal except for the aortic root, so I'm glad to know that my symptoms are related to the tachycardia.  Do you happen to know how the cardiologist would figure out what the mass is?  thanks, again.

[kenkeith]

Scar tissue and/or a growth can interrupt the pathway of electrical impulses and cause tachycardia.  It seems the doctor would be interested to know as that would provide some insight to a history and prognosis.

Did your echo provide an EF percentage and provide the left ventricle size.  If those conditions are normal, that would add to the diagnosis that tachycardia is the source of your chest pain, shortness of breath and dry cough.  Those symptoms would indicate there is reduced cardiac output with each heartbeat, as the racing heart does not provide enough time to fill the pumping chamber.  And when there is shortage of oxygenated blood to the heart, the heart responds with chest pain (angina), then shortness of breath and dry cough can occur.

The trace of leakage of valves are considered medically insignificant oftened do not progress nor cause a medical problem.

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[mystery726116]

The cardiologist isn't sure if the mass is a scar, a growth, etc.  He doesn't seem to concerned other than to say that it's rsponsible for the sinus node re-entry tachycardia by causign the electrical current to circle around it instead of or in addition to following its normal path.

I have a chronic dry cough, chest pain (which seems to be somewhat correlated to the tachycardia according to my holter and loop monitor results), and sometimes shortness of breath.  My last echocardiogram show trace leakage in 3 of my valves but not the aortic, so that seems to be a positive sign.  Does this information help?  Thanks for your help.

[kenkeith]

Is the mass in the atrium due to atrium septum defect (ASD)?  Do you have a history of aortic root size progression (apparently you don't as new finding)!  There are normal variations of the aorta root and correlated to age, size and gender so just based on the size currently does not provide the necessary information for some analysis. What are your symptoms?