Prevalence of anatomical variations at the suboccipital (V3) segment of the vertebral artery: a systematic review.

"Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding Open access funding provided by University of KwaZulu-Natal. The authors declare that no funds or grants were received during the preparation of this manuscript."

"This systematic review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) [] (Fig. ). This review is based on a comprehensive and extensive search of PubMed, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate. The following search terms were used: “vertebral artery” AND “suboccipital segment” AND “anomalies/anatomical variations of the V3 segment.” Reference lists of all extracted articles were also extensively searched for references to any further relevant publications. Primary studies that addressed the review question were included. Case studies, reviews, letters to the editors, conference abstracts, or studies containing incomplete or irrelevant data were excluded. The protocol for this review was registered in PROSPERO (Registration ID CRD42020173699).Fig. 1PRISMA flowchart showing the identification and evaluation of studies included in the systematic review"