A rare anomalous origin of right vertebral artery: findings on Doppler sonography.

Anomalous origin of the right vertebral artery from the right common carotid artery occurs rarely. To the best of our knowledge, the medical literature contains no information about gray-scale and Doppler sonography findings in this anomaly, despite the extensive information available from angiographic studies and postmortem examinations. We present the case of a 32-year-old man who suffered from a sudden onset of hemiparesis on the left side. Doppler sonography revealed a partial thrombosis in the proximal part of right common carotid artery. The right vertebral artery was shown to originate from the proximal part of the right common carotid artery. The right vertebral artery was patent. Thus, the use of color Doppler sonography can aid in the diagnosis of some vascular anomalies. Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J