[Taste disorder caused by carotid artery dissection]

There exist only a few reports on loss of taste sensation caused by dissection of the internal carotid artery. We describe a patient with carotid dissection and ipsilateral ageusia in the anterior two thirds of the tongue, presumably from a lesion of the chorda tympani. Ageusia in carotid dissection is explained by the close anatomic relation of the internal carotid artery and the chorda tympani in the short petrous bone. However, since extension of the space-occupying, dissecting intramural hematoma into the carotid channel as in our patient occurs infrequently--a probable precondition for the chorda tympani lesion--loss of taste is accordingly very rare. Reduced perfusion of the vasa nervorum can be excluded as another cause, because the chorda tympani is supplied only from branches of the external carotid artery.