Absent internal carotid artery during neck exploration for penetrating trauma
Allison Perko, Andrew Gaugler, Bree Steinke · 2026
Read Absent internal carotid artery during neck exploration for penetrating trauma by Allison Perko, Andrew Gaugler, Bree Steinke (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13420480.txt.
Description
Allison Perko and colleagues recount a neck stabbing case where surgeons, exploring the wound of a 23-year-old man bleeding heavily, found no internal carotid artery on the injured side. Being born without that artery is an extremely rare vessel variant. The right common and external carotid branches were found and named during the dissection, yet the internal branch simply was not there.
The left side, checked by imaging, showed the full normal set of carotid branches. Blood had clearly found other routes to the brain across his life, which is why the variant stayed hidden until trauma forced the question. Bleeding control and repair had to proceed without the expected anatomy as a guide. Trauma teams gain a reminder that a missing vessel on exploration may be a birth variant, not an injury effect.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Allison Perko, Andrew Gaugler, Bree Steinke |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 10971 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |