Endovascular Embolization of a Traumatic Vertebral Artery Fistula of the Cervical Spinal Canal: Case Report

ABSTRACT

Cervical vertebral artery fistula is rare arteriovenous malformations between the vertebral artery and veins of the neighborhood. We report a case of traumatic vertebral artery fistula of the cervical spinal canal in a 35-year-old-man who developed posterior neck pain, radiating pain and motor weakness on the left upper arm 25 days after penetrating injury by glass pieces on the anterolateral side of both neck. MRI revealed the signal void on T1-weighted sequence and vertebral angiogram demonstrated the fistula between the left vertebral artery and epidural venous channel at the C4-5 level. Complete occlusion of the fistula was achieved by endovascular embolization with microcoil(Spiral Coil). The patient had improvement of radicular pain and motor weakness and no complications related to the embolization procedure occurred. A brief review of the literature is given.