I have done close to 500 temporal artery studies in my career and today was a first.....

Patient presents with intermittent vision loss and occasional jaw pain when eating.  Her ESR was mildly elevated at 35mm/hour and has occasional headaches.  All makes sense; however, here is when it became fun!!!!

ECA and early segments of the Common STA are essentially normal with antegrade flow and maybe a higher diastolic flow then normal but nothing crazy.  The Middle STA and both Parietal and Frontal ramus branches exhibit OSCILLATING flow with a retrograde Systolic component and an antegrade diastolic pull.  

She was a VERY hard study and the distal Common STA was not visualized.  My 1st thought was for some reason the Internal Maxillary was Stealing the blood; however to add another curveball, the flow in the Middle STA becomes more antegrade when I had patient exercise her jaw.

I am stumped!!!  Any thoughts?
Andrew M. Bachman, Bs RVT
Technical Director / Vascular Lab Clinical Specialist
St. Lukes University Hospital and Health Network
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PH: 610-704-2821
 
"To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart"


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