Vertigo and cranial nerve palsy caused by different forms of spontaneous dissections of internal and vertebral arteries.

In this report we compare a subintimal hemorrhage of a dissected vertebral artery to a subadventitial hemorrhage of a dissected extracranial internal carotid artery. A subintimal hemorrhage compresses the lumen of the artery. Therefore, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), angiography and ultrasound are screening methods. For the subadventitial hemorrhage, which does not really compress the lumen but forms an aneurysmal dilatation, MRI is the only method of choice. We describe a case in which vertigo, nausea and vomiting are the only symptoms of a subintimal vertebral artery dissection. In this case an infarction of the cerebellar region supplied by the superior cerebellar artery could be demonstrated. Our second case demonstrates a palsy of the 10th, 11th and 12th cranial nerves, which is a less frequent symptom of internal artery dissections. The palsy of these cranial nerves seems to be caused by compression of the nerves or their nutritional arteries close to the aneurysmal dilatation of the subadventitial dissected internal carotid artery. In both cases clinical symptoms were resolved after anticoagulation.