2022 Volume 58 Issue 3 Pages 555-560
Neonatal Ductus arteriosus aneurysm（DAA）is considered as an innocent disease, and actually most of DAA disappear spontaneously. On the other hand, fatal complications of DAA have been reported. The characters of fatal DAA on the screen of ultrasound cardiography（UCG）and the necessity of the examinations for finding fatal DAA, how to follow DAA are unclear. We diagnosed DAA in 14 patients out of 204 neonates hospitalized to the department of neonatology in 7 months. We examined 14 cases of DAA and observed and recorded clinical characters. We could follow 13 of 14 patients with DAA by UCG until DAA disappeared. There were 3 patterns of the closing process:1）without thrombus formation in DAA, 2）with partial thrombus in DAA, 3）with fully filling thrombus in DAA. We performed contrast-enhanced computed tomography（CT）scan in 7 patients without symptoms because DAA appeared to press the left pulmonary artery on the UCG screen. In all the 7 cases, CT scan showed that DAA did not contact with LPA. In all cases, ductus arteriosus closed without symptoms. In 13 cases with the follow-up by UCG, DAA disappeared spontaneously without complications, irrespective of the closing processes. We suggest that asymptomatic DAA do not need invasive imaging techniques in addition to UCG, and we recommend the follow-up of DAA by UCG until it disappears completely, considering fatal complications and developing adult DAA.
