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Jeon, Chang, Kim, and Cho: Persistent Proatlantal Artery in Magnetic Resonance Angiography: A Case Report
Case Report

Journal of the Korean Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 2013; 17(1): 55-58.

Published online: 27 March 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13104/jksmrm.2013.17.1.55

Persistent Proatlantal Artery in Magnetic Resonance Angiography: A Case Report

Seong Woo Jeon1, Hyuk Won Chang1, Mi Jung Kim1, Jihyoung Cho2

1Department of Radiology, Keimyung University Dongsan Hospital, College of Medicine, Korea.

2Department of General Surgery, Keimyung University Dongsan Hospital, College of Medicine, Korea.

Corresponding author: Hyuk Won Chang, M.D. Department of Radiology, Keimyung University Dongsan Hospital, College of Medicine, 216, Dalseong-ro, Jung-gu, Daegu 700-712, Korea. Tel. 82-53-250-7767, Fax. 82-53-250-7766, hyukwonchang@korea.com

Received 30 May 2012       Revised 22 January 2013       Accepted 30 January 2013

Copyright © 2013 Korean Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Persistent proatlantal artery (PPA) is a rare embryologically remnant carotico-vertebrobasilar anastomoses. There are two types of PPA according to embryological considerations, origin and anatomic course. Type I PPA usually originate from internal carotid artery and not traversing transverse foramen. Type II PPA traverses from external carotid artery to C1 transverse foramen. The PPA is usually found incidentally without clinical symptoms, but can be related to several clinically significant vascular lesions, such as hypoplastic vertebral artery, intracranial arteriovenous malformation and in a case of carotid endarterectomy or external carotid artery embolization. So, thorough understanding of this anomaly is needed and we report a case of type II PPA diagnosed by MR angiography.

Keywords: Proatlantal artery Type II, Carotico-vertebrobasilar anastomosis, Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA)

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1
Contrast-enhanced neck MR angiography. Left oblique view (a) and posterior-anterior view (b) shows Type II proatlantal artery which originate from left proximal ECA (arrow). This artery traverses from left proximal ECA to left vertebral artery ,V3 segment (arrow heads). There is aplasia of left vertebral artery involving V1 and V2 segments.
jksmrm-17-55-g001
Fig. 2
Brain TOF (time-of flight) MR angiography shows about 2 mm sized small aneurysm of the right paraclinoid internal carotid artery (arrow).
jksmrm-17-55-g002

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