title: Treatment of vertebral artery aneurysms with transposition of the posterior inferior cerebellar artery to the vertebral artery combined with parent artery occlusion. Technical note.
abstract: The authors describe transposition of the posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) to the vertebral artery (VA) combined with parent artery occlusion for the treatment of VA aneurysms in cases in which a clip could not be applied because of the origin of the ipsilateral PICA. The aneurysm is trapped through a lower lateral suboccipital craniectomy. The PICA is then cut just distal to the aneurysm, and the PICA and VA proximal to the aneurysm are anastomosed in an end-to-end or end-to-side fashion. The surgical procedure was successfully performed in two patients, each of whom had hypoplastic occipital arteries (OAs). The PICA contralateral to the lesion was hypoplastic in one patient and distant to the ipsilateral PICA in the other patient. Mild transient dysphagia developed postoperatively in one patient due to glossopharyngeal and vagus nerve palsy, and the other patient had an uneventful postoperative course. In both patients, postoperative cerebral angiography demonstrated good patency of the transposed PICA. These results show that transposition of the PICA to the VA is a useful procedure for the reconstruction of the PICA when parent artery occlusion is necessary to exclude a VA aneurysm involving the origin of the PICA and when OA-PICA anastomosis or PICA-PICA anastomosis cannot be performed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Japan. kuogasa@iwate-med.ac.jp
authors.forename: Kuniaki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ogasawara
authors.forename: Yoshitaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kubo
authors.forename: Nobuhiko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tomitsuka
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sasoh
authors.forename: Yasunari
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Otawara
authors.forename: Hirosmi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Arai
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ogawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical; D017542:Aneurysm, Ruptured / Q000601:surgery*; D001158:Arteries / Q000637:transplantation; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000098:blood supply*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D002532:Intracranial Aneurysm / Q000601:surgery*; D008297:Male; D014711:Vertebral Artery / Q000601:surgery*; D020217:Vertebral Artery Dissection / Q000601:surgery*