Cervical aortic arch with aneurysm formation

Cervical aortic arch is a very rare anomaly presented as a pulsatile mass on the neck and usually with symptoms of dysphagia, cough and hoarseness. Rarer than the cervical aortic arch, is the aneurysm formation and, despite the equal sex distribution of cervical aortic arch, aneurysm formation always occurs in young females with only nine cases reported. We report herein a 24-year-old woman, diagnosed as cervical aortic arch with aneurysm formation due to basophilic degeneration, treated successfully with surgical intervention. To our knowledge no similar case has been reported. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.