CTA Head and Neck - Video Lesson

Imagine a situation in which a patient comes to your department with the symptoms of stroke. The initial scan is a CT of the head without contrast. But if there's nothing visible on that scan, what should come next? The answer is CT angiography of the head and neck. Diagnosing the symptoms of stroke is actually the most common reason for performing a CTA of the head and neck. We would perform this examination for stroke, but also for aneurysms, dissections, or other vascular changes that might be affecting the vessels of the head and neck. Remember that the symptoms of stroke can be caused by any interruption in the blood flow to and through the brain. And so stroke can be caused by blood flow changes in the brain itself or it can be caused by blood flow changes in the vessels that carry blood up to the brain. So those pathologies could include changes to the carotid arteries the aortic arch, or even the