Non-Traumatic Acute Subdural Hemorrhage Due To Cranial Venous Hypertension

Abstract

Acute subdural hemorrhage is typically associated with a history of head trauma, and as such it is a finding with significant potential medicolegal consequences. In this article, 37 adult and post-infantile pediatric sudden death autopsy cases with small volume (“thin film” or “smear”) acute subdural hemorrhage are presented—in which there is either no further evidence of head trauma or only features of minor head injury. The possible underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are explored, and it is concluded that a common thread in many of these cases is likely to have been cranial venous hypertension at around the time of death. These findings may have implications in instances where small volume subdural hemorrhage is identified in the absence of other evidence of significant head injury.

Spontaneous Atraumatic Subdural Hematoma Related to Methamphetamine Use

“…The search terms “subdural” and “amphetamine" were used in the PubMed database search. Although it has been described in postmortem series as being associated with thin SDHs, methamphetamine use causing a significant intracranial SDH has only been described in the literature once [ 12 , 13 ]. Thus, we report here the second case of a significant spontaneous intracranial SDH caused by methamphetamine use.…”