[Carotid dissections]

Abstract

In younger patients, the clinical symptoms of sudden unilateral headache and facial pain, often combined with Horner syndrome and the cerebrovascular symptoms of TIAs or stroke, should indicate the diagnosis of spontaneous carotid dissection. Angiographic findings can verify this diagnosis, showing various signs of eccentric, narrowing stenosis, false lumen, pseudoaneurysms, or complete occlusion. An addition to noninvasive Doppler ultrasonography, B-mode and Duplex investigations, although more or less nonspecific, give some indications of the diagnosis; modern imaging techniques, especially MRI, can image the intramural hematoma directly. As the hematoma is the source of the intracranial emboli, the therapy of choice in this rarely diagnosed disease should be anticoagulation.