Abstract
Tortuosity of blood vessels is a common angiographic finding that may indicate systemic disease and can be correlated with vascular pathologies. In this work, we determined whether patients with and without internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysm presented with differences in its tortuosity descriptors. We retrospectively analysed data of 298 patients hospitalized between January 2014 and June 2018. For each patient’s imaging data, we extracted a curve representing the ICA course and measured its Relative Length (RL), Sum of Angle Metrics (SOAM), Product of Angle Distance (PAD), Triangular Index (TI), and Inflection Count Metrics (ICM). We found that patients with an ICA aneurysm had significantly lower RL (0.46 ± 0.19 vs. 0.51 ± 0.17; p = 0.023) and significantly higher SOAM (0.39 ± 0.21 vs. 0.32 ± 0.21 p = 0.003), PAD (0.38 ± 0.19 vs. 0.32 ± 0.21; p = 0.011), TI (0.30 ± 0.11 vs. 0.27 ± 0.14; p = 0.034), and ICM (0.30 ± 0.16 vs. 0.22 ± 0.12; p < 0.001). We found that that patients who presented with a subarachnoid hemorrhage had significantly higher PAD (0.46 ± 0.22 vs. 0.35 ± 0.20; p = 0.024). In conclusion, higher tortuosity of ICA is associated with ICA aneurysm presence.
Highlights
Tortuosity of blood vessels is a common angiographic finding that might indicate systemic diseases, such as hypertension or diabetes mellitus [1,2], and can be correlated with vascular pathologies [3,4]
We found that patients with an internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysm had significantly lower Relative Length (RL) (0.46 ± 0.19 vs. 0.51 ± 0.17; p = 0.023) and significantly higher Sum of Angle Metrics (SOAM) (0.39 ± 0.21 vs. 0.32 ± 0.21 p = 0.003), Product of Angle Distance (PAD) (0.38 ± 0.19 vs. 0.32 ± 0.21; p = 0.011), Triangular Index (TI) (0.30 ± 0.11 vs. 0.27 ± 0.14; p = 0.034), and Inflection Count Metrics (ICM) (0.30 ± 0.16 vs. 0.22 ± 0.12; p < 0.001)
Higher tortuosity of ICA is associated with aneurysm presence in any of its intracranial segments
Summary
Tortuosity of blood vessels is a common angiographic finding that might indicate systemic diseases, such as hypertension or diabetes mellitus [1,2], and can be correlated with vascular pathologies [3,4]. It can increase with age [5]. A few mechanisms may be linked to an increase in tortuosity, the first of which are mechanical factors of blood flow, such as elevated blood pressure [2] or reduced axial tension [6]. Tortuosity could result from an increase in blood flow [2]
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