The Headache and Neck Pain in Ischemic Stroke Patients Caused by Cervicocerebral Artery Dissection. A Case-Control Study

Vertebrobasilar and internal carotid arteries dissection in 188 patients

“…According to various reports, mean age of patients with dissection ranges from 42.0% to 55.3%, which is in agreement with our results (53,7%) [1,8,41,57,62,68]. A somewhat higher averaged value in our cases is explained by the fact that most of the younger patients were transferred to one of the Vascular or Pediatric Clinics.…”

“…Headache and/or neck pain were more frequent in our patients with VAD (69.6% vs. 39,1%) than in those with the right or left ICAD (42% vs. 17,8%) (Table 2), which is similar to some reports [1], but lower in another one [58]. Both symptoms are less frequent in dissections accompanied by atherosclerosis [62,96]. Headache and pain in patients with stroke following dissections appear in 20.6% as the initial symptom [62].…”

“…The initial symptoms are commonly related to headache, which appears in 17-85% of patients [57,59,68], and neck pain with a frequency of 25% in ICAD [57], whilst headache and pain together occur in 20.6-75.0% [36,41,62]. Headache and/or neck pain were more frequent in our patients with VAD (69.6% vs. 39,1%) than in those with the right or left ICAD (42% vs. 17,8%) (Table 2), which is similar to some reports [1], but lower in another one [58].…”

“…Both symptoms are less frequent in dissections accompanied by atherosclerosis [62,96]. Headache and pain in patients with stroke following dissections appear in 20.6% as the initial symptom [62]. The remaining findings are mainly reffered to neurological signs [1,8,57,65,97,98].…”

“…Since the ICA, VA and basilar artery (BA) dissections (ICAD and VBAD) are usually presented as case reports [6,37,38,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56] or as smaller groups of patients [1,8,27,36,41,43,[57][58][59][60][61][62][63], we decided to present them in a group of 188 patients. In addition to a detailed examination of each patient, a comparison between the ICAD and VBAD will be presented as well.…”