CERVICAL AORTIC-ARCH - A CASE-REPORT

Cervical aortic arch is a rare type of aortic arch anomaly that is pre sumed to result from persistence of the third aortic arch and regressi on of the normal fourth arch. Most of the patients with this anomaly a re asymptomatic: but symptoms of dysphagia and respiratory distress du e to the compression by the vascular ring have been reported. Other fi ndings such as a supraclavicular pulsatile mass, blood pressure discre pancies between the upper limbs, and loss of femoral or opposite-upper -limb pulses with compression of the cervical mass may also be present . In this article a twenty-two-year-old woman with symptomatic cervica l aortic arch is presented. The patient had a left cervical pulsatile mass and elevated blood pressure on her right upper limb and was treat ed surgically with reanastomosis of the aorta.