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Vertebral artery anomaly with entry at C4—avoiding a surgical pitfall: a case report

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Abstract

We present a case of an unusual course of the vertebral artery (VA) with intra-foraminal entrance at C4. A patient with traumatic fracture of C3 and C4 with dislocation C3/C4, spinal cord compression and ensuing quadriplegia presented with unilateral entrance of the VA at C4 detected on preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The patient was surgically decompressed and stabilized by an anterior-posterior approach without intra-operative complications. Apart from anatomical findings no clinical case of entrance of the VA at C4 had been described in recent clinical literature. A physiologic high entrance of the VA is very rare but must be diagnosed preoperatively to avoid potential life threatening complications.

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None of the authors has any potential conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Trauma, Hand and Reconstructive Surgery, University Hospital Jena, Erlanger Allee 101, 07747, Jena, Germany

    Matthias Müller

  2. Centre for Orthopaedics, Traumatology und Reconstructive Surgery, SRH Zentralklinikum Suhl, Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse 2, 98527, Suhl, Germany

    Joachim Bleeck & Michael Ruf

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  1. Matthias Müller
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  2. Joachim Bleeck
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  3. Michael Ruf
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Correspondence to Matthias Müller.

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Müller, M., Bleeck, J. & Ruf, M. Vertebral artery anomaly with entry at C4—avoiding a surgical pitfall: a case report. Eur Spine J 17 (Suppl 2), 291–293 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-007-0582-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-007-0582-9

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