Anterior Cerebral Artery and Anterior Communicating Artery Variations: Assessment with Magnetic Resonance Angiography.

Background: Although anterior cerebral artery (ACA) and anterior communicating artery (AcomA) variations have been frequently investigated by contrast-enhanced angiography, the number of studies performed with magnetic resonance angiography is quite low. Our aim in this study is to investigate ACA and AcomA variations with time of flight magnetic resonance angiography (TOF MRA).

Methods: Source and maximum intensity projection images of 581 adult patients (273 males, 308 females) who were scanned for intracranial arteries with the TOF MRA method were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: We found the typical configuration rate of the ACA and AcomA complex to be 40.6%. The most common structural anatomic variations out of typical configuration were AcomA aplasia (18.9%) and AcomA hypoplasia (17.9%), respectively. The least frequent variation that we found was duplicated AcomA (0.9%). When we examined gender comparatively, unilateral A1 segment aplasia was found to be higher in males and azygos ACA was found to be higher in females (P = 0.001 and P = 0.029, respectively).

Conclusions: In this study, in which we used the TOF MRA technique, we detected high rates of anatomic variations of ACA and AcomA. This method, which is noninvasive, does not require contrast material and does not contain ionizing radiation, can be preferred especially in the evaluation of patients with kidney disease and contrast allergy.