calcification of the carotid siphons

[jennwatkin]

Season's Greetings!
My daughter is 13, about 4 weeks ago she woke up with the left half of her face paralyzed. The doctor's have determined it Bell's Palsey by process of elimination. They seem to be right as she is starting to smile again with both cheeks :)
However, when they did the CT Scan on her, they found calcification on the mural carotid siphons...they tell me this is something they have seen in a 13 year old before and referred me to the neurologist. She too does not have an answer as to what is causing it and has ordered an MRI. I'm relieved they're voluntarily looking further into this, but the MRI is at least three months away.
Can someone please tell me:
-what causes this?
-If they've ever seen it in a 13 year old?
-what the treatments are for it?
-what else could it be a sign of?
-what can it lead to or cause?
And anything else you think is good to know in dealing with this.

I really appreciate your help and thank you very much!

Jennwatkin
British Columbia, Canada

[jennwatkin]

Thank you

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

There are a number of possibilities that may cause calcifications in carotid siphons....... diabetes, cardiac disease, carotid stenosis are a few. But these are encountered in adults.

There was a large sample study done on this topic. They concluded that the calcifications are ..... "most likely a physiologic response to turbulent flow at natural bends in the artery rather than secondary to underlying disease predisposing to early atherosclerotic calcification"..... Koch et al.  

This calcification may not be significant. But the future course has to be discussed with the neurologist.

Hope this helps.