Collateral Circulation in Occlusive Vascular Lesions of the Brain: The role of the middle meningeal artery in the collateral circulation in compensating for occlusions of the internal carotid artery or its branches

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses one concrete point: the role of the middle meningeal artery in the collateral circulation in compensating for occlusions of the internal carotid artery or its branches. For this purpose series of 20 cases of occlusion of the internal carotid and 9 cases of occlusion of the middle cerebral artery are examined here. In the first group, it was found that only in three cases was the collateral circulation between the external and internal carotid arteries affected almost exclusively through the middle meningeal artery. In the second group, it was possible to discover only a single example in which the middle meningeal took part in the revascularization of the middle cerebral artery. The cases that is described here is chosen from among a series of twenty occlusions of the internal carotid and nine cases of occlusion of the middle cerebral show that in a certain percentage, the middle meningeal plays an important role in the complex anastomotic system which connects the external and internal carotid arteries, a system which can contribute to the collateral circulation if a blockage of the internal carotid or one of its branches takes place. These facts confirm angiographically the data already presented by anatomic studies on the existing anastomotic connections between the ophthalmic and middle meningeal arteries.