Intracranial arterial fenestration

Last revised by Travis Fahrenhorst-Jones ◉ on 20 Mar 2024

Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data

Citation:

Jones J, Fahrenhorst-Jones T, Ashraf A, et al. Intracranial arterial fenestration. Reference article, Radiopaedia.org (Accessed on 03 Mar 2025) https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-5876

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-5876

Permalink:

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/5876

rID:

5876

Article created:

25 Mar 2009, Jeremy Jones ◉

Disclosures:

At the time the article was created Jeremy Jones had no recorded disclosures.

View Jeremy Jones's current disclosures

Last revised:

20 Mar 2024, Travis Fahrenhorst-Jones ◉

Disclosures:

At the time the article was last revised Travis Fahrenhorst-Jones had no financial relationships to ineligible companies to disclose.

View Travis Fahrenhorst-Jones's current disclosures

Revisions:

11 times, by 9 contributors - see full revision history and disclosures

Systems:

Central Nervous System

Tags:

variant

Synonyms:

Intracranial artery fenestration
Fenestration of intracranial arteries

Intracranial arterial fenestration refers to segmental duplication of the intracranial arteries. They may be contrasted to arterial duplication, which consists of two distinct vessels with separate origins and no downstream convergence. They are rare anomalies, felt to result from incomplete fusion of primitive embryologic vessels.

Fenestration is the luminal division of the vessel into two separate and parallel channels which rejoin distally ¹. Each channel has distinct endothelial and muscularis layers, may be differently sized, and may share adventitial layer depending on degree of embryological fusion ³. Although a fenestration is usually of considered to be of minimal significance, there is an association with aneurysm formation near proximal part of fenestration ². This is hypothesized to be secondary to focal defects in media layer near sites of channel divergence/convergence ^4,5.

Fenestration is more common in the posterior circulation. The rate of fenestrations based on published angiographic series has been much lower than that at cadaveric series. Reported incidence of intracranial fenestration on imaging series is ³: