Anterior choroidal artery variant and acute embolic stroke. Case report.

SUMMARY: The anterior choroidal artery has the cortical branches to the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes in the early embryological stage, which later become the posterior cerebral artery distal to the posterior communicating artery (P2-4). Acute embolic stroke occurred in a 57-year-old man with an anterior choroidal artery having such a persistent embryonic branch to the temporal lobe. Recognition of this embryological form of the anterior choroidal artery is clinically important in acute cerebral ischaemia because the cerebral region between the territories supplied by the middle cerebral artery and the anterior choroidal artery is shown on carotid angiography as an avascular area, which could be misunderstood as a region of the acute ischaemia.