[What clinical significance do vascular anomalies of the outer ear canal have?].

Vascular anomalies of the internal auditory canal (IAC) are relatively common, being found in 20-25% of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies performed in patients with unilateral sensorineural hearing loss. They are usually asymptomatic and their diagnosis is almost always based on MRI, as they are generally undetected by routine clinical examination. Recently, the clinical relevance of these IAC anomalies and the effectiveness of vascular decompression have been debated. We present a series of 7 vascular anomalies of the IAC found in a series of 83 consecutive MRI scans performed in a screening program for IAC and cerebellopontine angle pathology. We reviewed their clinical and radiological presentation to evaluate their clinical relevance. In this series, we found no correlation between the presence of such vascular anomalies and the clinical symptoms that motivated MRI, so we conclude that most of these anomalies were accidental findings.