Multiple intrapetrous aneurysms of the internal carotid artery.

Aneurysms of the petro us portion of the the internal carotid artery are quite rare, there having been only 20 such examples previously reported [1 -7]. Although some aneurysms have been bilateral, there has been no report of more than one aneurysm ipsilaterally. Historically many of the reported cases were originally diagnosed as glomus jugulare tumors until angiography and / or operation led to the correct diagnosis. Sometimes surgeons perfoming middle ear exploration (even for suspected vascular tumors) without preoperative angiography had disastrous results [1, 3 , 4]. We report an example of multiple ipsilateral aneurysms of the intrapetrous internal carotid artery diagnosed preoperatively by angiography and offer a postulate for their origin.