[Closed intracranial extradural traumatic lesions of the internal carotid artery]

Closed intracranial lesions of the internal carotid artery are severe complications of craniocerebral trauma. Intradural lesions of branches of this artery are common and well known while extradural lesions are less frequently found. This is illustrated also by a small number of lesions found in our patients within the twenty-year period, namely 8/1000 compared to intradural lesions of branches of the internal carotid artery. Traffic accidents are dominating in their etiology and the causative mechanism is transsphenoidal fracture of the skull base. Due to difficult surgical approach inadequate methods of ligature of the extracranial portion of the internal carotid artery have been used before but it has not led to cure. Contrarily to this, modern direct microsurgical approach or balloon embolisation successfully solve this problem.