Are the anomalous vertebral arteries more hypoplastic?: retrospective linear mixed model approach

BACKGROUND: Small or hypoplastic vertebral artery (VA) is one of the risk factor for posterior circulation stroke. We assess whether various types of VA anomaly contribute to its diameter. METHODS: We screened 238 patients who underwent neck CT and MR angiography within 1 month. A V1 anomaly was defined as the abnormal origin of the VA on a three-dimensional MR angiography and a V2 anomaly was defined as the VA not passing through the 6th cervical transverse foramen (TF) on an axial CT image. A linear mixed model was used to evaluate the determinants of VA size. RESULTS: Among participants, 24 (10.1%) subjects exhibited an anomalous VA and, of the 476 VAs examined, 11 (2.3%) had an aortic origin and 27 (5.7%) had an abnormal entrance into the C6 TF. Presence of the V1 anomaly was positively associated with the V2 anomaly (P for chi-square < 0.001) and a linear mixed model revealed that being male (0.2 mm larger, P = 0.015), having a right VA anomaly (0.3 mm smaller, P < 0.001), having a V1 anomaly (0.9 mm smaller, P < 0.001), and having a V2 anomaly (0.7 mm smaller, P < 0.001) were significant predictor of VA diameter. CONCLUSION: The diameters of VAs with an anomalous aortic origin or an abnormal entrance of the TF were significantly smaller than those of normal VAs. These findings suggest that anomalies of the VA detected in 3-dimensional CTA or MRA may be clues for vertebral artery hypoplasia. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12883-017-0951-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.