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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Asian J Neurosurg 2020; 15(01): 214-217
DOI: 10.4103/ajns.AJNS_167_19
Case Report

Isolated Infarction of the Splenium: A Rare Presentation of Mild Head Injury

Saravanan Sadashivam
Department of Neurosurgery, Meenakshi Mission Hospital, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
,
Arun Natarajan
Department of Neurosurgery, Meenakshi Mission Hospital, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
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Posttraumatic cerebral infarction (PTCI) is a devastating complication of traumatic brain injury. It is usually seen in patients with moderate-to-severe head injury with a reported incidence of 1.9%–10.4%. Brain shift associated with the traumatic intracranial space-occupying lesions with or without severe cerebral edema is the most common mechanism underlying the PTCI. Without associated direct vascular injury, isolated PTCI is very rare after mild head injury. Such cases of PTCI following mild head injury have been reported in children in whom they usually affect the gangliocapsular region supplied by the lenticulostriate arteries. Such infarcts in adults are extremely rare. Although the exact pathogenesis is not clear, vasospasm or shearing-associated intimal tear is proposed to be the cause for this infarct. Other common causes of cerebral infarction should be ruled out before making such a diagnosis. Unlike PTCI associated with a severe head injury, cerebral infarction following mild head injury is expected to have a better neurological outcome.

Key-words:

Cerebral infarction - mild head injury - splenium - vasospasm

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Nil.




Publication History

Received: 07 June 2019

Accepted: 13 November 2019

Article published online:
16 August 2022

© 2020. Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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