08/09/2026
🚨 STROKE TRIGGERED BY HEAD ROTATION?
Don’t just look at the brain.
Look at what happens when the neck moves.
đź§ Clinical Pearl: Bow Hunter Syndrome
A patient with recurrent posterior circulation strokes had:
🔸 Occipitalization of C1
🔸 C1–C2 bony anomaly
🔸 Osteophyte at the C2 transverse foramen
🔸 Recurrent symptoms with head movement
Static angiography didn’t tell the whole story.
🎯 Dynamic DSA did.
The patient turned the head to the LEFT.
Injection on the RIGHT side demonstrated dynamic vertebral artery compression at the C2 transverse foramen.
💡 The diagnosis was made not by looking at the artery at rest—but by watching it disappear with movement.
Think Bow Hunter Syndrome when:
➡️ Posterior circulation strokes keep recurring
➡️ Symptoms are provoked by neck rotation
➡️ There is a C1–C2/CVJ bony abnormality
➡️ Routine vascular imaging is unrevealing
📌 Static imaging shows anatomy.
Dynamic angiography shows the mechanism.
Sometimes, the most important “sequence” in stroke imaging is turning the patient's head.