Deep cerebral venous thrombosis: a challenging diagnosis

Trombose venosa profunda cerebral: um diagnóstico desafiante

LETTERS

Deep cerebral venous thrombosis: a challenging diagnosis

Trombose venosa profunda cerebral: um diagnóstico desafiante

Arnaldo Pires^I; Sofia Rocha^II;Margarida Rodrigues^II; Álvaro Machado^II; Esmeralda Lourenço^II; Carla Ferreira^II

^IInternal Medicine Department

^IINeurology Department, Braga, Portugal

^{Correspondence}

Deep cerebral venous thrombosis (DCVT) of internal cerebral vein, without involvement of the superior sag-ittal sinus is a rare disorder and may be associated with poor prognosis¹.

CASE

We report the case of a 47 years-old female patient with a last medical history for peripheral venous throm-bosis. She denied smoking or alcohol habits but took oral contraceptives. No family history of similar events. She sought medical attention at the emergency depart-ment (ED) for headache, vomiting and confusional syndrome.

She remained bedridden at home with persistent headache, vomiting and postural imbalance. The head-ache was holocranial, pressure type, at first gradual and then with progressive deterioration and no relieving or aggravating factors. Three weeks later noted a con-fusional syndrome. At the ED on physical examination found her awake, disoriented, with apathy following simple orders, but unable to execute complex orders; de-creased fluency of speech, but without naming errors. A right hemiparesis was apparent. No other neurolog-ical signs were found. She was hemodynamically stable and afebrile.

Brain CT scans (Fig A) revealed symmetrical tha-lamic and midbrain hypodensities associated with hy-perdensity of Galen vein and straight sinus. MRI (Fig B) showed DCVT of Galen vein, rectus sinus, internal ce-rebral veins and right lateral sinus.

Anticoagulation with intravenous heparin was started.

Investigation was negative for thrombophilia, autoi-mune diseases or infections.

She was discharged 14 days later, after presenting a steady improvement, only with a slight decrease of speech fluency. Warfarin and discontinuation of oral contraceptives were advised.

DISCUSSION

The pathogenesis of venous infarct is related to vaso-genic edema, parenchymal injury and dysfunction caused by disruption of the blood-brain barrier and rupture of veins².

Clinical presentation is variable and may be acute, sub-acute or chronic. Headaches are the most frequent symptom. Focal neurological deficits, seizures and en-cephalopathy with loss of consciousness or coma are also part of the clinical spectrum².

Etiology is usually multifactorial and risk factors include pro-thrombotic conditions, anti-conception pill use, pregnancy, malignancies, infections among others².

DCVT is a rare disorder whose clinical features are nonspecific. DCVT causes symmetrical strokes, usually, affecting thalamus, basal ganglia and the surrounding white matter. Diagnosis is confirmed by abnormal signal of the venous sinus on MRI. Tomography is normal in 30% of the cases^1-3.

Standard treatment is heparin. Endovascular throm-bolysis can be performed when there is clinical deteri-oration.

Prognosis is good, although worst in the DCVT and worse, if associated with infection of the central nervous system, malignant neoplasm, cerebral hemorrhage or Glasgow <9 on admission. The risk of recurrence is low. Anticoagulation should be maintained with warfarin for 3 to 6 months if there is a transient risk factor².

In this case the initially nonspecific symptoms were under-interpreted by the patient and her family. Further deterioration of consciousness and a typical neuroim-aging of DVCT facilitated the diagnosis. Oral anti-con-ception was the risk factor. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment are essential to avoid devastating situations^4,5.

Received 19 November 2010

Received in final form 8 February 2011

Accepted 15 February 2011

• 1. Spearman MP, Jungreis CA, Wehner JJ, Gerszten PC, Welch WC. Endovas-cular thrombolysis in deep cerebral venous thrombosis. Am J Neurora - diol 1997;18:502-506.
• 2. Bousser MG, Ferro JM. Cerebral venous thrombosis: an update. Lancet Neurol 2007;6:162-170.
• 3. Herrmann KA, Sporer B, Yousry TA. Thrombosis of the internal cerebral vein associated with transient unilateral thalamic edema: a case report and review of the literature. Am J Neuroradiol 2004;25:1351-1355.
• 4. Rafique MZ, Bari V, Ashraf A, Ahmed MN. Cerebral deep venous thrombosis: case report and literature review. J Pak Med Assoc 2005;55: 399-400.
• 5. Lacour JC, Ducroq X, Anxionnat R, Taillandier L, Auque J, Weber M. Throm-bosis of deep cerebral veins in form adults: clinical features and diagnostic approach. Rev Neurol 2000;156:851-857.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 July 2012
• Date of issue
  June 2011