The clinical significance of junctional dilatation of the posterior communicating artery

Abstract

✓ Junctional dilatation of the origin of the posterior communicating artery presents a characteristic angiographic picture that occasionally may be difficult to differentiate from that of an aneurysm. Some investigators believe that such dilatations are in fact aneurysmal. This paper reports and assesses the gross and histological findings in seven junctional dilatations discovered at autopsy, including one aneurysm mistakenly diagnosed angiographically. There were no significant histological abnormalities in any case. It is concluded that a junctional dilatation is neither aneurysmal nor preaneurysmal and is probably not even a pathological entity.