Intracranial Haemorrhage Probably Due to an Angiographically Occult AVM after Carotid Stenting

Abstract

Angiographically occult vascular malformations refer to cerebrovascular malformations that are not demonstrable on technically satisfactory cerebral angiography. Authors herein present a very unusual intracranial bleeding complication related to an angiographically occult vascular malformation after extracranial carotid artery stenting procedure. A 52-year-old male patient admitted to the hospital with 2 episodes of amaurosis fugax in the left eye. Cervical carotid angiography and bilateral carotid Doppler ultrasonography revealed a 98% stenosis of the left internal carotid artery just distal to the bifurcation. Post-stenting control cervical carotid angiography revealed neither any residual stenosis nor a developmental venous anomaly. The patient developed left pupil dilatation with loss of consciousness two hours after the neurovascular intervention. Emergent cranial CT showed acute subdural haematoma, intracerebral and subarachnoid haemorrhage with massive midline shift. He underwent an emergent craniotomy with left temporal lobectomy. Abnormal cortical vascular structures with prominent engorgement were remarkable over the posterior temporal cortex. Histopathological studies confirmed the diagnosis of an occult AVM. Classically, these lesions are not visualized with angiography.Our patient's cerebral angiography and MR investigations were all normal. To our knowledge this is the first case in literature in which intracranial haemorrhage (acute subdural haematoma, intracerebral haematoma, SAH) occurred due to hyperperfusion of angiographically occult vascular malformation.