Ming Zhu, Aimin Sun, Rui He
Department of Radiology, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai, China.
Pediatr Radiol. 2009 Apr;39(4):343-7. doi: 10.1007/s00247-008-1140-2. Epub 2009 Feb 3.
Anomalous retroesophageal left brachiocephalic vein is a very rare anomaly of the brachiocephalic vein. At the time of writing only one case had been reported worldwide.
The purpose of this study was to report four cases of anomalous retroesophageal left brachiocephalic vein and to evaluate the utility of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) for investigation of the anomaly.
From June 2005 to May 2008, we examined 2,146 children with congenital heart disease and 4,082 children without congenital heart disease using MDCT. The patients ranged in age from 1 day to 12 years. Maximum intensity projection reconstruction was performed to show the brachiocephalic vein.
A retroesophageal left brachiocephalic vein was found in 4 of the 2,146 patients (0.19%) with congenital heart disease and in 0 of the 4,082 patients without congenital heart disease. In all four patients, the condition was confirmed during surgery for the congenital heart disease.
MDCT is a good modality for evaluating the anomalous retroesophageal left brachiocephalic vein. An anomalous retroesophageal left brachiocephalic vein was more common in patients with congenital heart disease.
食管后左头臂静脉异常是一种非常罕见的头臂静脉异常。在撰写本文时，全球仅报道过一例。
本研究旨在报告4例食管后左头臂静脉异常病例，并评估多排螺旋计算机断层扫描（MDCT）对该异常进行检查的效用。
2005年6月至2008年5月，我们使用MDCT对2146例先天性心脏病患儿和4082例非先天性心脏病患儿进行了检查。患者年龄从1天至12岁不等。采用最大密度投影重建来显示头臂静脉。
2146例先天性心脏病患者中有4例（0.19%）发现食管后左头臂静脉异常，4082例非先天性心脏病患者中未发现该异常。在所有4例患者中，该情况在先天性心脏病手术期间得到证实。
MDCT是评估食管后左头臂静脉异常的一种良好方式。食管后左头臂静脉异常在先天性心脏病患者中更为常见。
