ECHO ROUNDS Section Editors - Edmund Kenneth Kerut, MD and Michael R. McMullan, MD
The role of echocardiography in anomalous origin of coronary artery from pulmonary artery (ALCAPA): Simple tool for a complex diagnosis
Abstract
Anomalous origin of coronary artery from pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) is a rare coronary anomaly usually presenting in the first year of life. Adult presentation suggests a wide range of differential diagnosis such as myocarditis, dilated cardiomyopathy, and coronary artery disease. We have presented here the major distinctive echocardiographic features of ALCAPA through 4 cases. Since echocardiography is often used as the first imaging modality in these clinical scenarios, recognizing the characteristics of ALCAPA in a routine echocardiographic examination can transform a readily available, low-cost tool into a valuable discriminative modality.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
None.
