The relationship between dizziness and cervical artery stenosis.

Abstract

Dizziness is a common complaint in neurology departments. We sought to identify the relationship between dizziness and cervical artery stenosis, as assessed using cervical computed tomographic angiography. From 1 January 2012 to 20 April 2014, we prospectively and continuously collected the demographic characteristics, clinical data, and chief complaints of all hospitalized patients aged between 20 and 80 years who underwent computed tomographic angiography at our medical center. Altogether, 5796 hospitalized patients were enrolled in this study. After propensity-score matching, a matched cohort of 1139 patients in a dizziness group and 1139 patients in a nondizziness group was created. The proportion of patients with vertebrobasilar artery stenosis was larger in the dizziness group than in the nondizziness group (13.3 vs. 7.6% in the matched cohort) and was especially larger among patients with stroke histories (19.4 vs. 11.2% in the matched cohort). In the logistic regression, dizziness did not significantly predict carotid artery stenosis (P>0.01). Age, male sex, and hypertension, diabetes, myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, or demyelinating diseases were the predictors of carotid artery stenosis that remained after adjustment (P<0.01). Patients with dizziness faced nearly twice the risk for vertebrobasilar artery stenosis than did those without dizziness (P<0.01). The other independent predictors of vertebrobasilar artery stenosis were age, male sex, hypertension, coronary artery disease, cerebral infarction, and hemorrhage (P<0.01). Patients with dizziness faced nearly twice the risk for vertebrobasilar artery stenosis than did those without dizziness, whereas dizziness did not significantly predict carotid artery stenosis.