EVALUATION BY ANGIOGRAPHY OF THE LATERAL DOMINANCE OF THE DRAINAGE OFTHE DURAL VENOUS SINUSES

Venous drainage dominance of the dural venous sinuses may be defined a s the drainage only or mainly into one of the transverse sinuses, as s hown by bilateral carotid angiography. The aim of this study was to ev aluate the venous drainage dominance in bilateral carotid angiograms o f 189 cases retrospectively. Among these cases 41.3% showed drainage m ainly to the right side, 37.6% showed equal drainage to each side, 18. 5% showed drainage mainly to the left side, 2.1% showed drainage only to the right side and 0.53% showed drainage only to the left side. Cer ebral venous drainage dominance is of great importance and should be c onsidered before operations on patients for radical neck dissection, r emoval of tumors in the neck that invade the internal jugular vein or tumors of the glomus jugulare which may require ligation of the intern al jugular vein.