Dissection of the extracranial vertebral artery: clinical findings and early noninvasive diagnosis in 24 patients.

Dissection of cervical arteries causes ischemic stroke in young adults. This reports the clinical, ultrasonographic, and neuroradiological findings in 24 patients with 28 vertebral artery dissections in the neck (4 occurring bilaterally). In 20 patients (83%), the dissection was temporally related to trauma. No patients had an underlying vascular disease, for example, atherosclerosis or fibromuscular dysplasia. In all, the major initial manifestation was pain in the occipital or neck region. The next most common symptoms were vertigo and nausea (in 17 patients). Clinical manifestations were vertebrobasilar transient ischemic attack (TIA) (5 patients: in 2 patients vestibulocerebellar TIA, in 1 patient visual TIA, in 1 patient motor TIA, and in 1 patient brain stem TIA with perioral paresthesia), cerebellar infarction (10 patients, in 4 patients bilateral), brainstem infarction (5 patients), posterior cerebral artery territory infarction (1 patient), and multiple vertebrobasilar ischemic lesions (3 patients). Typical angiographic findings were irregular narrowing of the vessel lumen or a tapering stenosis with distal occlusion. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a thickened vessel wall with hematoma signal at the site of the dissection. Duplex color-flow imaging was valuable for the early diagnosis of extracranial vertebral artery dissection and for follow-up examinations. The distal V1- and the proximal V2-segment (at the level of C6 vertebra) was the most frequent localization of dissections (in 43%). The outcome was favorable except for 2 patients with basilar artery occlusion. Embolism to the basilar artery may be avoided by early administration of anticoagulants.