Vertebral Artery Hypoplasia And Ischemic Stroke Of Posterior Circulation

ObjectiveTo investigate the proportion of vertebral artery hypoplasia (VAH) in cerebral ischemic stroke patients and to investigate whether the VAH is related to the posterior circulation ischemic stroke (PCI).MethodsWe had retrospectively analyzed the baseline data and imaging data of the consecutive842cases of hospitalized patients with ischemic stroke from2008.8-2010.3in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. The VAH was defined if the vertebral artery diameter was less than2mm or could not be visualized on the images of the contrast enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) or CT angiography (CTA).ResultsA total of92(10.9%) ischemic stroke patients were diagnosed as the VAH. There were more PCI patients had VAH (39,17.0%) than those patients with stroke in the anterior circulation did (53,8.7%)(P=0.001). Such difference still existed after Multivariate logistic regression analysis. The ratio of male patients who had VAH in PCI patientsatients was up to87.2%. In stroke patients with one-side VAH, the rate of PCI was significantly higher in those had>50%stenosis of contralateral vertebral artery (57.6%) than in patients had <50%stenosic or normal contralateral vertebral artery (27.7%)(P=0.001).ConclusionVAH is an independent risk factor for PCI. Male patients having VAH are more likely to have PCI. When unilateral vertebral artery stenosis rate is more than50%, the hypoplastic vertebral artery has less capacity in compensatory, which could lead to the susceptibility of the individual to brain ischemia.