POSTER PRESENTATION Open Access Diameters of the normal thoracic aorta measured by cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging; correlation with gender, body surface area and body mass index Anne Davis 1* , Cameron Holloway 1 , Adam J Lewandowski 2 , Ntobeko Ntusi 1 , Richard M Nethononda 1 , Alex Pitcher 1 , Jane M Francis 1 , Paul Leeson 2 , Stefan Neubauer 1 , Oliver J Rider 1 From 16th Annual SCMR Scientific Sessions San Francisco, CA, USA. 31 January - 3 February 2013 Background Although it is widely accepted that obesity is related to increased aortic size, to date, there is no large study asses- sing the effect of obesity, in the absence of co-morbidities, on regional aortic diameter. In addition, despite the fact that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is generally regarded as the gold standard technique for imaging the aorta, the vast majority of data comes from 2D echo, which has marked limitations in the setting of obesity. As a result, we aimed to use MRI to 1) establish a large 1 Oxford Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Table 1 Gender Specific Effects of Obesity on Regional Aortic Diameter - Data Presented as Mean With Normal Range (+/- 2SD) Male Aortic Diameter (mm) Normal Weight Overweight Obese ANOVA p Aortic Valve Annulus 24.0 (18.8-29.2) 24.7 (19.5-29.9) 25.7 (20.7-30.7) <0.05 Sinus of Valsalva 32.2 (24.6-39.8) 32.9 (25.3-40.5) 33.3 (25.3-31.3) <0.05 Sino-tubular Junction 24.9 (18.1-31.7) 25.8 (17.0-34.6) 25.9 (19.1-32.7) <0.05 Ascending Aorta 26.6 (18.2-35.0) 27.8 (18.8-36.8 28.6 (23.2-34.0) <0.01 Proximal Descending Aorta 20.4 (14.6-26.2) 21.2 (15.6-26.8) 22.1 (16.5-27.7) <0.01 Distal Descending Aorta 17.4 (12.0-22.8) 18.3 (12.7-23.9) 19.0 (14.8-23.2) <0.01 BMI (kg/m2) 22 +/-1.7 27 +/-1.6 34 +/-4.8 <0.01 BSA (m2) 1.9 (+/-0.1) 2.0 (+/-0.1) 2.3 (+/-0.2) <0.01 Female Aortic Diameter (mm Normal Weight Overweight Obese ANOVA p Aortic Valve Annulus 20.2 (17.0-23.4) 21.7 (18.5-23.9) 21.6 (17.6-25.6) <0.01 Sinus of Valsalva 27.6 (22.0-33.2) 28.6 (21.6-35.6) 27.8 (22.2-33.4) <0.05 Sino-tubular Junction 21.7 (16.7-26.7) 22.5 (16.5-28.5) 22.3 (16.5-28.1) <0.05 Ascending Aorta 24.8 (17.6-32.0) 26.7 (19.3-34.1) 26.9 (19.3-34.5) <0.01 Proximal Descending Aorta 18.6 (14.6-22.6) 19.5 (14.9-24.1) 20.1 (15.5-24.7) <0.01 Distal Descending Aorta 16.1 (14.1-18.1) 16.9 (14.7-19.1) 17.6 (15.7-19.5) <0.01 BMI (kg/m2) 22.0 (+/-1.6) 27.0 (+/-1.5) 37.0 (+/-4.8) <0.01 BSA (m2) 1.7 (+/-0.1) 1.8 (+/-0.1) 2.0 (+/-0.2) <0.01 Davis et al. Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 2013, 15(Suppl 1):E77 http://www.jcmr-online.com/content/15/S1/E77 © 2013 Davis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.