Papers of the Week

Vertebral artery dolichoectasia may produce a variety of clinical scenarios depending on the level of compression of several nervous structures along its course. Despite the pathophysiology is not fully clarified, it would seem that this pathological elongation and dilation of the artery is acquired and determined by a thinning of the internal elastic lamina exposed to chronic arterial hypertension or also as a result of degeneration and atherosclerosis of the arterial wall with age. When treatment is indicated, several techniques to relieve compression have been proposed, but they are usually challenging and non-standardized.