Occipital artery anatomy in 15 cadavers

HAN Yong-gang; GAO Yi-shen; SUN Ming-yang; TONG Xiao-guang

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2015.07.002

Abstract：Objective To observe the anatomical features of occipital arteries in 15 cadavers, and to discuss how to obtain the occipital artery effectively in the posterior circulation vascular bypass operation by using occipital artery as the bridge vessel .Methods Using craniotomy to dissect 30 occipital arteries in 15 cadaveric heads in the far lateral ap-proach, and we observed the origin , course branches and adjacent structures .The diameter of the occipital artery segments and vertebral artery , and the distance from the adjacent structures were measured .Results The occipital artery at the two abdominal ventral posterior inferior originated from external carotid artery wall or the outer wall , and accompanied by greater occipital nerve , continued to uplink to the scalp in the superficial fascia , and separated one or two terminal or distal bran-ches distributing on the scalp .The diameter of starting point of the occipital artery was (2.3 ±0.3) mm, the length of the occipital artery which paralleled to the superior border of transverse process and crossed the superior nuchal line was (93.2 ±2.6) mm, and the outer diameter of vertebral artery which paralleled to the superior border of transverse process was (1.9 ±0.4) mm, the outer diameter of vertebral artery which crossed the superior nuchal was (1.8 ±0.3) mm.The mid-point diameter of V3 segment of vertebral artery was (3.2 ±1.4) mm, the distance from occipital artery to the external oc-cipital protuberance was (21.4 ±0.9) mm, and the maximal distance from OA to SNL is (23.7 ±1.2) mm.Conclusion In the intra-extra posterior circulation bypass surgery , the occipital artery could be safely and accurately obtained by u-sing lateral 25 mm from the external occipital protuberance , within 30 mm bellow SNL , the mastoid process and transverse process of the atlas as the markers .