Bengaluru: Mamatha, an IT professional working in the city, was admitted to a hospital. “She was admitted with a complaint of progressive left side upper and lower limb weakness. With the onset of weakness in her limbs she also experienced severe headaches,” said, senior neurosurgeon Ravi Mohan Rao, at Sagar Hospital, Banashankari.
She started feeling drowsy so an emergency CT scan of brain was done and to the utter shock of the family, the CT scan showed a large right side brain hemorrhage involving regions know as the temporal lobe and basal ganglia.
“The MRI showed a hemorrhage in the right temporal lobe and basal ganglia. She was admitted to ICU and treated with aggressive medical measures to reduce the intracranial pressure. She showed significant improvement, became fully conscious and her paralysis on the left side was cured.” said Dr. Ravi.
Mamatha suffered from a spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (SICH). “When this happens in a young person, the cause is likely to be a cerebral arteriovenous malformation (AVM). It is a congenital problem, an abnormal tangle of blood vessels composed of brain arteries and veins, which are prone to rupture, cause SICH or seizures,” says Dr. Ravi.
According to the doctor, in such cases the bleeding can be very dangerous and can cause permanent paralysis of limbs or even death. If untreated an AVM, which has bled once into the brain, has a 4 per cent rate of re-bleeding and causing more brain damage.
A cerebral DSA was obtained which showed an AVM in the amygdala of the right temporal lobe with an aneurysmal varix within the AVM. This aneurysmal varix was the weak point, which had ruptured and caused the brain hemorrhage. In addition, the venous drainage was both into superficial and deep venous systems of the brain.
