CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CIRCLE OF WILLIS ANATOMICAL VARIANTS IN CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASES.

To date, many studies investigated cerebral circulation due to the clinical significance of circle of Willis (CW) anatomical abnormalities. Various techniques have been used to study the anatomical variants of CW, but non-autopsy investigations have some certain limitations in detecting anatomical variants. Studying morphology of CW constituent arteries on specimens taken during the autopsy allows a direct and wide view of the vessels at the base of the brain. The purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical significance of anatomical abnormalities/variants of CW arteries in the population sample from the North-East region of Romania by assessing the causes of cerebral vascular mortality. This study included patients who died of various medical causes in the Emergency Clinical Hospital "Prof. dr. N. Oblu" Iaşi, in a period of 30 months (01.01.2014-30.06.2016), and who were subjects of a rutine autopsy. Out of the total of 96 available human brains, 28 cases (29.17%) were classified as "abnormal" or "anatomical variants" and these were the cases that were analysed in this research. In this group, 53.57% were males, and the mean age of the cases was 61.78 years. 60.71% of patients with anatomical variations of CW died of cerebrovascular diseases, and 39.29% died of other medical causes, on the first rank being acute myocardial infarction (17.85%). Knowing the frequency of anatomical variations of CW arteries in the population of Moldova can be useful in planning surgery for cerebral aneurysms, to avoid accidental vascular trauma during surgery and can be reported in current anatomy treatises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]