Ascending cervical artery

Muscular branches of the vertebral artery in the neck. At positions distal to a vertebral obstruction, these muscular branches may receive blood retrogradely from occipital and ascending pharyngeal branches of the external carotid artery, or from the deep and ascending cervical arteries. In addition, anastomoses can develop between branches of the subclavian artery and external carotid artery when the common carotid artery is obstructed. 

Perthes disease, also known as Legg-Calv -Perthes syndrome after the investigators who independently identified this condition in 1910, is related to an idiopathic avascular necrosis of the proximal femoral epiphysis. It mainly affects children 3-12 years old with a peak incidence at approximately 4-8 years and a definite prevalence (4 1) in males and lower social classes (Guille et al. 1998). The onset of Perthes disease is related to the development of the femoral head vasculature, which includes the ascending cervical arteries (branches from the medial and lateral circumflex arteries), the lateral epiphyseal vessels and... 

Robben SGF, Lequin MH, Diepstraten AFM et al (2000) Doppler sonography of the anterior ascending cervical arteries of the hip evaluation of healthy and painhil hips in children. AJR Am J Roentgenol 174 1629-1634... 

Most often, the occipital artery arises from the external carotid artery, in some cases as a common trunk with the ascending pharyngeal artery. In other cases they may arise from the origin of the internal carotid artery. The occipital artery may also arise from the vertebral system via the branch of the first or the second vertebral body level or, more rarely, from the cervical arteries or from the vertebral artery at C3 level. 

AVMs of the perimedullary fistula type are direct AV shunts that are located on the ventral or dorsal surface of the spinal cord or the conus medullaris, usually in the thoracolumbar area, occasionally thoracic, and rarely cervical. Their location thus is intradural, intra- or extramedullary. They are always supplied by spinal cord vessels, either by the anterior spinal artery (ventrally) or by a posterolateral artery (dorsally), depending on their location. They drain into spinal cord veins (Fig. 17.12). Drainage may even ascend up to the foramen magnum or into the posterior fossa. 

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