The cisterna chyli: prevalence, characteristics and predisposing factors

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and characteristics of the cisterna chyli (CC) in a large 3,000-patient cohort and to identify potential predisposing factors for the development of a CC. Three thousand consecutive contrast-enhanced CT examinations (1,261 women, 1,739 men, m...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European radiology 2009-01, Vol.19 (1), p.73-78
Main Authors: Feuerlein, Sebastian, Kreuzer, Georg, Schmidt, Stefan A., Muche, Rainer, Juchems, Markus S., Aschoff, Andrik J., Brambs, Hans-Juergen, Pauls, Sandra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Cancer
Child
Child, Preschool
Diagnostic Radiology
Female
Gastrointestinal
Germany - epidemiology
Humans
Imaging
Internal Medicine
Interventional Radiology
Lymphatic Metastasis - diagnostic imaging
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle Aged
Neuroradiology
Prevalence
Radiology
Risk Assessment - methods
Risk Factors
Thoracic Duct - diagnostic imaging
Tomography, X-Ray Computed - statistics & numerical data
Ultrasound
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and characteristics of the cisterna chyli (CC) in a large 3,000-patient cohort and to identify potential predisposing factors for the development of a CC. Three thousand consecutive contrast-enhanced CT examinations (1,261 women, 1,739 men, mean age 61.0 years) of the chest and/or abdomen were included in this retrospective study. Imaging characteristics of the CC (size, attenuation, location) were documented as well as clinical information (malignant disease, pattern of metastasis). A CC was found in 16.1% of the patients with an average volume of 302 µl. The mean attenuation was 4.8 Hounsfield units (HU). Twenty percent of the CC showed CT densities of 15 HU and higher. Patients with malignancies showed a significantly (p < 0.001) higher prevalence of CC (340/1,757, 19.4%) than patients with benign conditions (144/1,243, 11.6%). Especially the finding of a large CC (>1,000 µl) represents an elevated relative risk for malignancy of 1.7 (p = 0.0017). We found a significant association between malignant disease and the presence and size of a cisterna chyli. Identifying the continuity between the CC and the thoracic duct is a safer method to distinguish a CC from retrocrural lymph nodes than near-water CT attenuation alone.
ISSN:0938-7994
1432-1084
DOI:10.1007/s00330-008-1116-5