Two sets of identical twins with cervical artery dissection concordant for temporal artery pathology.

Völker W, Kuhlenbäumer G, Dittrich R, Appenzeller S, Grewe S, Maintz D, Heindel W, Grotemeyer KH, Ringelstein EB

Abstract

The etiology of spontaneous cervical artery dissection (sCAD) is largely unknown. 1,2 Approximately 15% of patients with sCAD develop multiple sCAD either simultaneously or in short succession. 3 Therefore, we hypothesized that patients with sCAD are generally susceptible to dissection and that this predisposition manifests itself in the arterial wall. Previously, we demonstrated signs of a generalized arteriopathy in superficial temporal artery (STA) biopsies of patients with sCAD but not of controls. 4 In this study we investigated STA and skin biopsies of two pairs of identical twins in whom one twin of each pair had had a sCAD.