Introduction: Pneumocephalus (PNC) is most commonly associated with trauma or intracranial surgery, less commonly secondary to an infectious source, and is rarely caused by barotrauma.
Case report: A 32-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with complaint of resolved left-sided facial droop and a lingering paresthesia of her left upper extremity after a cross-country flight. Computed tomography demonstrated several foci of air in the subdural space consistent with PNC.
Conclusion: For PNC to occur there must be a persistent negative intracranial pressure gradient, with or without an extracranial pressure change. In this case the pressure change occurred due to cabin pressure.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.