Proximal clipping and bypass between bilateral vertebral arteries using a radial arterial graft for the treatment of a dissecting aneurysm of the vertebral artery.

Proximal clipping has been performed recently as the main surgical treatment for a dissecting aneurysm of the vertebral artery. When there is a contralateral vertebral artery of a smaller size with arteriosclerotic changes, some form of bypass to prevent cerebellar and brain stem infarction is needed in addition to proximal clipping. We treated a 50-year-old man with a ruptured dissecting aneurysm of the left vertebral artery and stenosis at the V3 segment of the right vertebral artery. The caliber of the right vertebral artery was smaller than the left. After an anastomosis between bilateral vertebral arteries using a radial arterial graft, dissecting aneurysm was clipped at the proximal portion of the aneurysm.