Entrapment of the basilar artery within a clival fracture: case report and literature review

Abstract A review of the literature revealed that basilar artery(BA) entrapmentis a very rare (17 cases published) and severe pathological condition, which often leads to death. We report the case of a 72-year-old man who presented with a longitudinal clivusfracture associated with a basilar artery entrapment. This entrapmentwas responsible for a basilar arterydissection, which led to an ischemic stroke in the pons. The patient was managed with medical treatment, mainly to avoid a progression towards an ischemic stroke. It consisted of heparin therapy followed by antiplatelet therapy which finally resulted in a successful outcome. In BA entrapmentmost of the patients who had a favorable outcome received antithrombotictherapy. This suggests that antithrombotictherapy might be useful in the first line treatment of post-traumatic BA entrapment.