Cerebral amyloid angiopathy, associated with inflammation: clinical observation and literature review

Abstract

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy, associated with inflammation (CAA-I) is a rare syndrome, described rather long ago. The course of disease varies from conditionally asymptomatic, very seldom diagnosed forms to severe lethal cases with intracerebral bleedings and brain edema. The basic clinical symptoms of CAA-I are cognitive disorders, convulsions, headache, consciousness impairment, often ignored or wrong interpreted. Manifestations of CAA-I are a part of clinicoradiological continuum, significantly influencing the course of other cerebrovascular diseases. The paper presents description of a clinical case of symptom-free or preclinical form of CAA-I, incidentally detected while realizing magnetic resonance tomography. Analysis of this clinical case and literature data demonstrates difficulties of CAA-I differential diagnosis, value of neurovisualization in patients with cognitive disorders and accentuates the need of expanding the existing diagnostic criteria of CAA-I.