Internal carotid and vertebral arteries diameters and their interrelationships to sex and left/right side

Abstract

Background: The available anatomical data about diameters of inflow vessels to the circle of Willis reflect various diagnostic and imaging methods used, sample sizes, levels of measurements, and lack of possible specific ethnic, regional or genetic data. Additionally, the data are often without distinctions about left-right or sex. Materials and methods: Therefore, using computed tomography angiography (CTA) we investigated diameters of internal carotid (ICA) and vertebral (VA) arteries in 70 adult persons (28-75 years) of both sexes (34 males and 36 females), at predefined cervical parts of ICA (2 cm above carotid bifurcation) and of VA (5 mm before VA penetrated the dura). Results: Sex differences were expressed as highly significant larger diameters of left VA (LVA) in males (3.49 mm) than in females (3.00 mm), and as significantly larger diameters of right VA (RVA) in males (3.20 mm) than in females (2.82 mm), as well as of right ICA (RICA) diameters in males (5.04 mm) than in females (4.56 mm), but without such difference for left ICA (LICA) between males (4.82 mm) and females (4.60 mm). Intrasex (in males or in females) left-right differences of ICA and VA diameters were not significant. Significant positive correlations were found in females between RICA and RVA, and in males between RICA and LICA. Calculated mean sum of ipsilateral diameters of right arteries (RAA = RICA + RVA) was in males 8.25 mm, in females 7.38 mm, and of left arteries (LAA = LICA + LVA) was in males 8.31, and in females 7.60 mm, without statistically significant difference between RAA and LAA, neither in males, nor in females. Statistically highly significant larger sums of diameters were in males than in females for both, RAA and LAA. Conclusions: Our findings, as the first data about diameters of ICA and VA systematically obtained by CTA in the population of western Balkans, suggest that in the studies of these diameters is absolutely necessary to analyse separately the data for sex, and to use defined standard levels.

Inner diameters of the normal carotid arteries measured using three-dimensional digital subtraction catheter angiography: a retrospective analysis

“…Fourth, the sample sizes of many of the above studies were small, which increases the likelihood of sampling errors. We found that the inner diameters of the bilateral CS and distal CCA were greater in males than females, consistent with observations reported by several prior investigations using CTA, ultrasonography, or MRA [22,24,[26][27][28][29]. One possible reason for the larger vessel diameters in males than females is that men have, on average, a larger body size.…”

“…An interesting observation of this analysis was that the inner diameters of the CS and distal CCA were larger on the right side than on the left side. Several published studies have also reported a larger luminal diameter for the right CCA than for the left CCA [24,27], although not all authors agree [22,28,29]. In view of the clear variation between left and right sides in this study, which included a large number of participants and used a technique with a high spatial resolution (3D-DSA), the failure of some other studies to detect such differences may be related to smaller sample size (which would reduce the power of the analysis) and use of methods with poorer spatial resolution.…”

Internal carotid and vertebral artery dissections — a comparison of clinical, radiological and prognostic characteristics

“…Changes in subadventitia might be, presumably, more often in intracranial VAD, which was not noted in our study [30,31]. However, we must remember that there are other plausible explanations for the higher count of occlusions, such as lower lumen or lower blood flow velocity in vertebral arteries [32].…”

Climate Change and Health

“…Топлотни таласи утичу и на повећање смртности, док ће погоршање климатских услова довести до учесталијих промјена и погоршања здравствене ситуације код најтежих болесника. Ријеч је о обољењима са кардиоваскуларним и неуролошким ризицима, алергијским реакцијама и другим акутним реакцијама на високе дневне температуре ваздуха, а могу се јавити и други здравствени проблеми као што су болести изазване бактеријама у храни и води, болести које преносе комарци и птице и друго (Miljković et al 2011;Vujkovic et al 2012;Vulic et al 2019;Škrbić et al 2019;Spasojević et al 2020)…”