Circle of Willis & its variations - evaluation with magnetic resonance angiography.

Volume : VII, Issue : IV, April - 2018

Dr. Ashwini Sankhe, Dr. Aakash Vaswani, Dr. Mohd Javed Shaikh

Background: Circle of Willis (COW) shows wide variation in different population groups. This study evaluates the anatomical variations in mixed

Indian population in tertiary hospital in Mumbai using three–dimensional time–of–ight (3D–TOF) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA).

Materials & Methods: Total 923 patients (471 men & 452 women; mean age, 52.3 years) underwent 3D–TOF MRA over a period of 18 months

using a 3.0 T MR scanner with review of images done using maximum intensity projection (MIP) and 3D volume rendered images.

Results: A complete COW was seen in 247 patients (135 females and 112 males). An incomplete anterior and posterior COW was found in 166

cases (17.98 %). The remaining 510 (55.25 %) subjects had partially complete COW conguration. The most common type of COW in a single

subject was anterior variant type A and posterior variant type E.

Conclusion: Our study provides an important reference source for COW variations in the regional population as a single center study and conrms

that conguration of the COW varies largely in general population. The anterior COW was complete in 79.95 % cases while the posterior COW was

incomplete in 70.53% cases. Complete COW was seen in 26.76 %. The prevalence of complete conguration of COW was slightly higher in

females than males.