Dissecting aneurysms of the basilar artery in 2 patients.

An uncommon consequence of intracranial vascular disease is the intramural dissection of blood or "dissecting aneurysm". A 69-year-old man with chronic subarachnoid hemorrhage from a posterior fossa mass lesion and a 30-year-old man with migraine and a brain stem stroke illustrate the diverse etiologic, clinical, radiographic, and pathologic characteristics of this unusual lesion.

Computed tomography and skull radiography in the diagnosis of calcified brain tumor.

Among 104 consecutive patients with verified brain tumor, 13 (12.5%) had histologic evidence for calcification. Skull radiographs and CT scans of those cases revealed that in most instances calcification detected by CT was also present on skull radiographs. In cases with a high density lesion present on CT and normal skull radiography, the maximum density on CT was below that which characterizes calcification. The study suggests a complementary role of the two modalities in investigating intracranial calcification.

Traumatic false aneurysm of the superior cerebellar artery simulating posterior fossa tumor.

An example of traumatic false aneurysm of the right superior cerebellar artery is described. The chronicity of the clinical picture and a positive brain scan strongly suggested a posterior fossa neoplasm; however, the angiographic findings permitted a specific diagnosis to be made.

The effect of contrast media on patient motion during cerebral angiography.

Conray, Renografin-60, and Reno-M-60 were compared in 40 patients undergoing cerebral angiography. Pain during injection, as evidenced by head motion, was documented using subtraction. Conray produced less had head motion and therefore a superior subtraction study than either Renografin-60 or Reno-M-60 and was also subjectively the least painful of the three.