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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

We read the recent description associating carotid dissection with recent viral illness by Constantinescu¹ but believe the anecdotal observation is just that, and adds an extra layer of etiology that is unnecessary. Both patients had minor trauma at the time of their dissections, and this in itself is all that is necessary to trigger dissection, particularly in patients with underlying arterial pathologic conditions such as fibromuscular dysplasia.

The Canadian Stroke Consortium is presently conducting a national prospective study of cervical arterial dissection, and of the 74 patients evaluated so far, at least 60 cases had a traumatic cause. The relationship to trauma depends entirely on how well the history is elicited. In over 80% of our cases, the moment of dissection was heralded by acute, often severe head or neck pain, so the attribution of spurious minor trauma can be avoided. In 21 cases, violent trauma was responsible, but in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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