The Significance of Displacement of the Cavernous Portion of the Internal Carotid Artery

The anatomy and angiographic anatomy of the third portion of the internal carotid artery has been described and the normal variations of its course discussed. Forty extracerebral masses lying adjacent to this portion of the artery and displacing it are described; a further ten cases have been collected from the literature. The submission is made that only extracerebral masses can displace the portion of the artery under discussion. This view is supported by the fact that the cavernous part of the artery was never displaced in the angiograms of 19 cases with intracerebral (temporal lobe) masses.