Spontaneous dissection of the internal carotid artery: description of a case with lower ranial nerve palsy

Spontaneous dissection of the extracranial internal
carotid artery is a well recognized cause of headache
and juvenile stroke; lower cranial nerve palsy as a complication
of dissection is rare.
We report the case of a female patient with bilateral dissecting
aneurysm of the internal carotid artery, associated
with unilateral cranial nerve XII palsy and oculosympathetic
palsy.
Neuroradiological findings, in particular those obtained by
Magnetic Resonance imaging, allow the identification of
the dissecting pathology and the correlation of the
aneurysmal formation with nerve palsy.