This review focuses on pathophysiology, clinical signs, and imaging of brain edema associated with intracranial tumors and its treatment. Brain edema in brain tumors is the result of leakage of plasma into the parenchyma through dysfunctional cerebral capillaries. The latter type of edema (ie, vasogenic edema) and the role of other types in brain tumors is discussed. Vascular endothelial growth...

A 37-year-old woman, previously known to have severe airplane phobia, develops panic disorder-like symptoms in the second hour of flight. After a while, disorder was accompanied by chest pain and syncope. An ECG showed no abnormalities. Transthoracic echocardiogram demonstrated decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (EF: 30), large apical akinesis, characteristic regional wall motion abno...

A 33-year-old woman developed severe post-lumbar puncture headaches in the course of work-up for multiple sclerosis. Immediately after receiving treatment with intravenous caffeine, she became blind and experienced a generalized tonic-clonic seizure. Brain MR imaging then showed vasogenic parieto-occipital edema. She recovered clinically and radiologically within 72 hours. After 1 year of follo...

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is characterized by acute reversible subcortical vasogenic edema that is typically bilateral and self-limiting. It preferentially affects posterior regions of the brain. Clinical manifestations include encephalopathy, seizures, headache, and cortical blindness. PRES may be precipitated by hypertensive crises such as eclampsia and by immunosupp...

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) may cause irreversible brain damage. The diagnosis is confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), where vasogenic edema may be seen especially in the posterior parts of the brain. MR spectroscopy (MRS) may be included to help predict the outcome by measuring selected metabolites for instance lactate. Usually lactate is immeasurable in brain...

A 72-year-old Japanese woman with rheumatoid arthritis whose activity decreased with previous treatments had recurrent thunderclap headaches during an atovaquone regimen for the treatment of pneumocystis pneumonia. The recurrent headaches disappeared after discontinuation of the drug. Brain magnetic resonance images showed multiple cerebral vasoconstrictions of cerebral arteries with vasogenic ...

We report a case of a basilar artery migraine in a 17-year-old boy with transient CT and MR abnormalities after each of two migraine episodes. A repeat MR study 6 months after the last event showed complete resolution of the lesion. Transient abnormalities on brain images similar to those shown in our case have been reported in patients with migraine and other neurologic conditions and are most...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The recently described posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) classically consists of reversible vasogenic edema in the posterior circulation territories, although conversion to irreversible cytotoxic edema has been described. We hypothesized that the extent of edema has prognostic implications and that diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) can help predict the...

OBJECTIVE Cerebral edema is a serious complication of acute liver failure (ALF), which may lead to intracranial hypertension and death. An accepted tenet has been that the blood-brain barrier is intact and that brain edema is primarily caused by a cytotoxic etiology due to hyperammonemia. However, the neuropathological changes in ALF have been poorly studied. Using a well characterized porcine ...