Baik Jiyeon, Baek Hye Jin, Shin Hwa Seon, Choi Kwang Ho
Department of Radiology, Inje University College of Medicine, Haeundae Paik Hospital, 875 Haeundae-ro, Haeundae-gu, Busan, 48108 Republic of Korea.
Department of Radiology, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Changwon Hospital, 11 Samjeongja-ro, Seongsan-gu, Changwon, 51472 Republic of Korea.
Springerplus. 2016 Jul 19;5(1):1123. doi: 10.1186/s40064-016-2807-z. eCollection 2016.
Duplication of the vertebral artery (VA) is a rare vascular variant. To the best our knowledge, only fourteen cases have been reported with angiographic findings that they have dual origin of the VA from ipsilateral subclavian artery. Herein, we present a case of duplication of right VA which was incidentally detected by magnetic resonance (MR) angiography.
A 69-year-old female patient presented with headache for 30 days. She underwent brain MR imaging with MR angiography for evaluating possible intracranial cause. There was a dual origin of the right vertebral artery (VA) as an incidental finding without other significant abnormalities.
Diagnosis of duplicated VA can be difficult due to its rarity and misinterpreted as the vascular dissection. In addition, a detailed knowledge of this variation is potentially important to prevent inadvertent challenges during endovascular procedure. Because duplicated VA has smaller lumen and usually enters the higher transverse foramen than those of normal side, it can be influence the choice or route of endovascular treatment.
We suggested that the understanding of embryologic background about VA can be helpful to identify unexpected vascular findings on imaging studies in clinical practice.
椎动脉（VA）重复是一种罕见的血管变异。据我们所知，仅有14例报告显示血管造影结果为椎动脉从同侧锁骨下动脉双重起源。在此，我们报告一例通过磁共振（MR）血管造影偶然发现的右侧椎动脉重复病例。
一名69岁女性患者因头痛30天就诊。她接受了脑部磁共振成像及磁共振血管造影检查，以评估可能的颅内病因。偶然发现右侧椎动脉双重起源，无其他明显异常。
由于椎动脉重复罕见，可能被误诊为血管夹层，因此其诊断可能具有挑战性。此外，详细了解这种变异对于防止血管内手术期间的意外风险可能具有重要意义。因为重复的椎动脉管腔较小，通常比正常侧进入更高的横突孔，这可能会影响血管内治疗的选择或路径。
我们认为，了解椎动脉的胚胎学背景有助于在临床实践中的影像学研究中识别意外的血管发现。
