Doppler sonography of vertebral arteries in young patients with vertigo - without apparent otogenic causes

ABSTRACT

Forty-eight young patients with vertigo without apparent otogenic causes were investigated to determine values of blood flow velocities and hemodynamic changes in extra-cranial vertebral arteries [VAS]. Color flow Doppler ultrasonography was used for the detection of a possible cause of vertigo in these cases. Electronystagmography was done to correlate its findings with that of vertebral arteries Doppler blood flow [VABF] and to study accuracy and reliability of this recent tool of investigation. A significant slow VABF was reported in vertigo group compared with the control group. Velocity of vertebral artery in 54.2% of the cases showed abnormal findings; a laterality group in 29.2% and the group with lower circulatory velocity in 25%. In about 67% of cases, the results of Doppler and ENG were in good agreement with each other. The ENT results of most of the cases of the laterality group were recorded to be of a central disorder