Spontaneous bilateral carotid artery dissection in a patient with bovine aortic arch.

Carotid artery dissections are commonly associated with trauma or various connective tissue disorders. Dissection of the cerebrovascular arteries can result in ischemic stroke and is a frequent stroke etiology in younger patients. Anatomical variants of aortic arch branching, such as the 'bovine' aortic arch, are assumed to have little or no physiological consequence. To the best of our knowledge, we present for the first time a case of spontaneous dissection of the common origin of the innominate and left common carotid artery in a bovine aortic arch, resulting in bilateral dissection of the carotid arteries.