The Moving Carotid Artery: A Retrospective Review of the Retropharyngeal Carotid Artery and the Incidence of Positional Changes on Serial Studies

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:Retropharyngeal carotid arteries are a clinically relevant anatomic variant. Prior studies have documented their incidence, but only a single case report has discussed the change in position of the carotid artery to and from a retropharyngeal location. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of retropharyngeal carotid arteries and to evaluate the change in position of retropharyngeal carotid arteries over serial CT examinations of the neck.

Flip-Flop Phenomenon: Swallowing-Induced Arterial Displacement as an Indicator of Carotid Artery Disease

“…Such dynamic movement of the carotid artery has been hardly reported; therefore, this phenomenon has not been studied thoroughly in a prospective cohort. In a previous study with serial CT examinations, 6.3% of the patients had a change in position of the carotid arteries to, or from, a retropharyngeal position [7]. The prevalence of this phenomenon is much lower than that in our study, suggesting different sensitivity between CT and ultrasound in identifying FFP.…”

Image-derived input function estimation on a TOF-enabled PET/MR for cerebral blood flow mapping

“…Such a study requires simultaneous acquisition of PET and MR information, to insure the accurate localization of the cervical arterial volume, which can change based on neck position. 32 Furthermore, any assessment of CBF measurements using MRI techniques, such as arterial spin labeling, benefits from the simultaneous acquisition of a reference standard PET map, as CBF is known to change significantly, due to factors such as time of day, caffeine and nicotine consumption, etc. 4 The total administered radioactivity used by previous 15 O-H 2 O PET studies ranged between 555 MBq or 15 mCi, 29 and 800 MBq or 21.6 mCi 30 and in one study a larger dose of 1480-1700 MBq or 40-46 mCi 31 is used.…”

Direct carotid puncture in acute ischaemic stroke intervention

“…Several studies have validated this technique, mainly for patients with difficult vascular anatomy of the aortic arch and the supra-aortic vessels 13–15. Difficult anatomical variations included type II and III aortic arches (figure 1), CCA ostium stenosis, severe internal carotid artery (ICA) tortuosity (figure 2), and also severely calcified aorta, the presence of a mural thrombus or a non-calcified plaque in the arch.…”

“…Patients who may benefit from this approach are also those who suffer from comorbidities that make surgery and the transfemoral access to the carotid difficult or impossible 16. The applicability of TCAR in the general population is still not defined, but according to major publications on the topic patients are chosen on the basis of anatomical considerations 13 14…”

“…Although transfemoral carotid revascularisation offers a less invasive alternative to access the supra-aortic vessels and lowers the morbidity related to surgery, TCAR is preferred over the transfemoral approach because the latter carries a higher burden of possible embolic complications and thus periprocedural strokes in the setting of elective carotid revascularisation 13 16–19. Furthermore, a significant subset of patients suffering from large vessel occlusive disease present vessels which are challenging to approach through the transfemoral route.…”