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Familial occurrence of spontaneous dissection of the internal carotid artery.

Spontaneous dissections of the extracranial internal carotid artery are diagnosed more frequently as their clinical and angiographic features are more widely recognized. Familial occurrence of spontaneous dissection of the internal carotid artery has not been previously reported. We describe the occurrence of this entity in a mother and daughter and also in a father and son. The familial occurrence of spontaneous dissection of the internal carotid artery raised the possibility of an inherited disorder of the blood vessel wall that predisposes the artery to this disorder. Fibromuscular dysplasia is suspected to be the underlying arterial disease, but other unknown arteriopathies cannot be excluded.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Spontaneous cervical cephalic arterial dissection and its residuum: angiographic spectrum.

Cervical cephalic dissections are uncommon acute disruptions of the arterial wall occurring predominantly in middle-aged women. Clinically, most patients present with unilateral headache, oculosympathetic palsy, or ischemic neurologic symptoms. Usually, a single internal carotid artery, predominantly the right, is affected, but simultaneous multivessel dissections are evident in about one-third of patients. Angiographically, the appearance of the dissection varies, depending on its severity, extent, and the interval between onset and angiography. In the patients reported, the disruption was manifested initially by eccentric tapered stenosis in 47%, tapered stenosis and a dissecting aneurysm in 28%, occlusion in 18%, or a dissecting aneurysm alone in 7%. Subsequently, stenotic dissections resolved in 60%, improved in 20%, and progressed in 15%, while dissecting aneurysms diminished in half and resolved in one-fourth of patients. An angiographic residuum, temporally remote to its onset, was evident in 25% of dissections. Hence, carotid arterial dissections tend to resolve, sometimes progress, but seldom recur.

Adult↗