Anatomical Features and Clinical Importance of the Vertebral Artery

Ace Dodevski, Dobrila Tosovska-Lazarova

Institute of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University Ss Cyril and Methodius Skopje, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
 

The vertebral artery and its branches are target of arteriographic investigations, ultrasound and Doppler visualization, MRI and CT imaging in many contemporary diagnostic procedures. The big horizon of procedures in the interventional and diagnostic radiology, orthopedic and surgery opens new avenues for the study of anatomy and especially variations of the vertebral artery and its branches. The aim of the present report is to give a summary of the vertebral artery anatomy as well as its variations, and to emphasize there clinical importance.

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Citation: Dodevski A, Tosovska-Lazarova D. Anatomical Features and Clinical Importance of the Vertebral Artery. Maced J Med Sci. 2012 Oct 15; 5(3):328-335. http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/MJMS.1857-5773.2012.0251.
Key words: vertebral artery; anatomy; origin; tortuosity; transverse foramen.
Correspondence: Ace Dodevski, MD. Institute of Anatomy, Medical Faculty, “Ss. Cyril and Methodius University”, 50 Divizija, bb 1000 Skopje, Repubic of Macedonia. Tel/fax: ++389 2 31 25 304. E-mail: a.dodevski@medf.ukim.edu.mk
Received: 04-May-2012; Revised: 04-Jul-2012; Accepted: 04-Jul-2012; Online first: 27-Sep-2012
Copyright: © 2012 Dodevski A. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Competing Interests: The author have declared that no competing interests exist.

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