Spinal cavernous angioma complicated by hemorrhage: susceptibility-weighted imaging findings

Abstract

A 16-year-old boy presented with posterior cervical pain radiating to the right upper limb. Cervical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed an intramedullary cavernous angioma (CA) in the level of C2. Susceptibility-weighted ima ging (SWI) showed longitudinal hypointensity from the bulb to the level of T1, which was suggestive of a longitudinal fiber-dissecting hemorrhage ( Figure).Intramedullary CAs are associated with an increased risk of hemorrhage. SWI is optimized for detection of magnetic susceptibility effects of blood products 1 . SWI is more sensitive for detection of CAs in the brain 2 , but the usefulness of SWI in cases of spinal CAs is not known.references Figure. T1-(A) and T2-weighted (B) images show a nodular lesion, with a hyperintense central focus in both images and a peripheral halo of hypointensity in the T2-weighted image, suggestive of a CA. (C) SWI showing a longitudinal hypointensity in the posterior portion of the medulla, which extends from the medulla oblongata to the level of T1. The T1-and T2-weighted images do not obviously show the hemorrhage or its extension. In the T2-weighted image, the perilesional hemorrhage is characterized by a discrete longitudinal image, but SWI shows its extension more conspicuously.

Qualitative and quantitative diagnosis of intramuscular hemangioma subtypes: Diagnostic performance comparison of ESWAN and conventional MRI

“…It has been reported that ESWAN is a precise method to show the intracranial capillary telangiectasia and cerebral hemorrhage (13). It can be used not only to diagnose the hemangioma subtypes of the brain or spine, but also to directly display the vessels in cartilage tube or disease progression (14)(15)(16)(17). However, there is no report of ESWAN being used for the diagnosis of IMHs.…”