Morphological Features of the Vertebral Artery Canal

At present, new examination methods used to determine the cause of cerebrovascular accidents require obtaining new anatomical facts about the morphology of the vertebral arterial canal (VAC) and the transverse processes foramens (TF) that form it.For this reason, this study is devoted to the investigation of the morphometric parameters of the vertebral artery canal at the level of the transverse process part, i.e. the bone segment, in adults.For this purpose, a 168 cervical vertebrae (CV) taken from the bone collection of the Museum of Anatomy, located at the Department of Human Anatomy and Medical Terminology of the Azerbaijan Medical University, was used.Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software version 16.The TF of the CV have different shapes.Among them, elliptical TF predominate.Usually, the TF of the CV, is larger on the left than on the right.The TF of the upper CV (C2-3) are narrower than the lower ones and are located in an oblique plane facing outward.The relative sizes of the TF of the lower CV (C5-6) increase.In this case, the exception is the last and first CV.At the level of the last CV (C7), the TF is either absent or of the smallest size.In rare cases, the 7th vertebra has a large transverse foramen.