Neck and brain transitory vascular compression causing neurological complications. Results of surgical treatment on 1,300 patients.

In this brief article we describe the role of compression of the vertebral subclavian arteries, internal mammary, internal carotid arteries, brachial plexus and coiling and kinking of the vertebral and basilar arteries, the faulty irrigation of blood supply and oxygen of the cerebellum and basal ganglia of the brain. Among the effects are: a decrease in the secretion of dopamine at the level of the putamen, which produces the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and chorea due to chronic transitory faulty blood supply and oxygen to the caudate nucleus, ballism by hypoxia at the level of subthalamic nuclei and athetosis in the lenticular nucleus. This compression is caused by the anterior scalene muscles and the cervical ribs at the level of the vertebrae C6-C7; by the sternocleidomastoid at the level of the cervical atlas; and coiling and kinking of the vertebral, basilar and the internal carotid arteries. The decreased blood supply to the cerebellum and basal ganglia is the cause of the Cerebellar Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (CTOS) and its neurological complications, among which are ipsilateral paralysis, Parkinson disease and others. We are presently engaged in several studies to widen our understanding of this phenomenon.