Department of Neurosurgery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84132, USA.
J Neurosurg. 2010 Oct;113(4):709-14. doi: 10.3171/2009.9.JNS09282.
Brain capillary telangiectasias (BCTs) are small, clinically benign, angiographically occult lesions that are usually incidental findings. Large capillary telangiectasias have not been reported previously as most BCTs are very small. Symptomatic BCTs are also rare, with few reports in the literature. The authors review the clinical manifestations, imaging, and histopathological characteristics of BCTs to further elucidate the diagnostic and clinical features of these vascular malformations.
The authors completed a retrospective radiological review of all cases of BCTs in the neuroradiology database at the University of Utah involving patients treated between January 1993 and December 2007. The MR imaging scans were reviewed, and the BCT was measured in 2 dimensions. They arbitrarily chose > 1 cm to define a large BCT as a majority of these lesions were smaller than that. The medical chart and the electronic database were used to gather each patient's clinical information.
One hundred thirty patients were identified in the archived neuroradiology database of capillary telangiectasias. Cases involving 105 patients with definite capillary telangiectasias were reviewed, and from these, 7 patients were identified to have a large capillary telangiectasia measuring > 1 cm. Upon further review, 2 of these patients were identified as having symptoms likely related to their capillary telangiectasia. These 2 cases are reported in the article. No patients with smaller BCTs were found to have symptoms related to their lesion.
Brain capillary telangiectasias are small vascular malformations that rarely cause symptoms. They are often overlooked on imaging because of their clinically benign nature; however, they have been misdiagnosed as glial tumors in the past. Specific MR imaging sequences (T1-weighted postcontrast and gradient refocused echo) are valuable in aiding diagnosis, as histopathological diagnosis is often not possible. These cases highlight that BCTs can cause symptoms, a finding that may actually be related to the size of the lesion (28.6% of large BCTs in this series were symptomatic, whereas none of the small ones were).
脑毛细血管扩张症（BCT）是一种小的、临床上良性的、血管造影隐匿的病变，通常是偶然发现的。以前没有报道过大的毛细血管扩张症，因为大多数 BCT 都非常小。有症状的 BCT 也很少见，文献中报道的病例也很少。作者回顾了 BCT 的临床表现、影像学和组织病理学特征，以进一步阐明这些血管畸形的诊断和临床特征。
作者对犹他大学神经放射学数据库中 1993 年 1 月至 2007 年 12 月期间治疗的所有 BCT 病例进行了回顾性放射学检查。对磁共振成像扫描进行了回顾，并对 BCT 进行了二维测量。他们任意选择>1cm 来定义大 BCT，因为大多数病变都小于该尺寸。使用病历和电子数据库收集每位患者的临床信息。
在存档的毛细血管扩张症神经放射学数据库中发现了 130 例患者。对涉及 105 例明确毛细血管扩张症的病例进行了回顾，其中 7 例被确定为大毛细血管扩张症，直径>1cm。进一步回顾发现，其中 2 例患者的症状可能与毛细血管扩张症有关。本文报道了这 2 例病例。没有发现较小 BCT 的患者有与病变相关的症状。
脑毛细血管扩张症是一种小的血管畸形，很少引起症状。由于其临床表现良性，它们在影像学上经常被忽视；然而，过去它们曾被误诊为神经胶质肿瘤。特定的磁共振成像序列（T1 加权对比后和梯度重聚焦回波）有助于诊断，因为组织病理学诊断通常不可行。这些病例表明，BCT 可引起症状，这一发现可能与病变的大小有关（在本系列中，28.6%的大 BCT 有症状，而小 BCT 无一例有症状）。
