CADASIL patient with extracellular calcium deposits.

We report the case of a 57-year-old male patient with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) diagnosed on the basis of ultrastructural and genetic examinations. Ultrastructurally, granular osmiophilic material (GOM) deposits, degeneration and loss of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and pericytes in small arterial and capillary vessels from skin-muscle biopsy typical of CADASIL were visible. Degeneration of pericytes and endothelial cells were often pronounced, which resulted in a complete disappearance of mural cells and extremely severe thickening of the basement membrane. Degenerative changes in blood vessels, especially evident in skeletal muscle arterioles, also included significant vacuolization of VSMC, misshapen nuclei both in vessel wall cells and skeletal muscle fibres, and deposits of a hyaline material and calcium in the vessel wall. Abundant calcium deposits were located in the vascular basement membrane and exhibited laminar morphology with abnormally arranged light and dark bands. In the basement membrane of the most severely affected microvessels, only clusters of calcium deposits and remnants of the mural cells were observed. Laminar calcifications were also observed within the basement membrane surrounding skeletal muscle fibres. Such abundant calcium deposits in CADASIL have not as yet been described. Morphological findings, described in this report, expand the spectrum of histopathological changes in this genetically determined angiopathy.