Seeking the link between extracranial carotid artery aneurysms and small vessel disease

Extracranial carotid artery aneurysms (ECAA*s) are rare. Because of the rarity
of this disease, no treatment guidelines exist. In order to understand which
ECAA patients benefit from medical therapy, more should be known about the
possible outcomes of this disease. Small vessel disease seen on brain MRI*s
could be a good marker to assess possible silent cerebrovascular disease caused
by ECAA*s, suggesting underlying generalized vascular disease. With this
knowledge, medical therapy for ECAA patients can be optimized to treat possible
generalized vascular disease, aiding physicians in choosing a treatment
strategy.

To assess the presence of small vessel disease (i.e. WMHs, lacunes,
microbleeds, perivascular spaces, and recent small subcortical infarcts) based
on 3 tesla brain and carotid MRI in patients with ECAA.

Monocenter longitudinal observational cohort study with 2 years of follow-up.

The burden associated with participation is that the ECAA patients will come
the UMCU every two years to receive a brain MRI. If possible, these visits will
be scheduled with the regular visits with their vascular surgeon. The data and
brain MRIs from the control group will be taken from the Rotterdam study. There
is no direct personal benefit for the enrolled patients or controls except that
the ECAA patients will be monitored more closely than usual by MRI scans that
will be clinically evaluated for insidious disease. Benefits in term of
knowledge are potentially very valuable as the study findings will improve our
understanding of the risk of brain damage by ECAA. Risks are small since there
are no known risks associated with MRI acquisition.