Is there a correlation between hand preference and vertebral-subclavian artery diameter and vertebral artery flow volume?

Abstract

Aim: During diagnostic and therapeutic cerebral angiographic studies, the prediction of the dominant vertebral artery side is highly important. The reason for right and left vertebral artery diameter asymmetry is not clear. We believe there may be a correlation between hand preference and vertebral artery flow volume dominance and subclavian artery diameter. Material and Methods: A total of 112 patients were included in this study. We examined 14 left-handed and 98 right-handed individuals. Ultrasonographic measurements of the vertebral arteries were performed with 7,5 Mhz linear probing between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae at each side. Vertebral artery diameter and volume flow and subclavian artery diameters were measured and average values recorded. Normality analysis was conducted by one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov testing. The paired-sample t-test was applied to compare the left and right side measures. Results: There were no significant differences in the diameter or volume flow of the right and left vertebral arteries (VA) between right- and left-handed individuals (p>0.05). Beside this, no significant difference was found in the diameter of either the subclavian artery between right- and left-handed individuals (p