Chyloptysis is a relatively rare embodiment of disease that encompasses a lengthy differential and provides many diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Presented here is the case of a young woman with massive chyloptysis due to a thoracic cavernous lymphangioma arising in the peripartum period. The severity of her condition mandated the use of cardiopulmonary bypass to resect her lymphangioma. ...

Three patients with symptomatic carotid cavernous fistulas (CCFs) characterized by complete occlusion of the proximal internal carotid artery were treated by percutaneous puncture and embolization. Two patients had CCFs associated with traumatic dissections of the internal carotid artery and were treated initially with trapping procedures. Both patients had persistent symptoms related to the CC...

Introduction. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the clinical course, with the dural carotid cavernous fistula (CCF), featuring a pallet of symptoms, paying special attention to radiological findings. Methods. Seventy-six consecutive patients with dural CCFs were investigated in detail, all of whom were defined by angiography. Results. The most common initial symptom was diplopia in 47 pat...

A 65-year-old man with a dural carotid-cavernous fistula (DCCF) presented with sudden onset of painful trochlear nerve paresis. Typical signs of DCCF including conjunctival arterialization, chemosis, and proptosis did not become manifest until 4 months later. This unusual presentation of DCCF was caused by drainage of the fistula posteriorly into the inferior petrosal sinus with low flow. With ...

Direct carotid cavernous fistulas (CCFs) have been successfully treated with detachable flowdirected balloons for many years (1 , 2). However, there remains a significant number of fistulas that cannot be entered with these flow-directed balloons. Usually this is because the fistula orifice is small or the orifice is located at such an angle to preclude balloon entry. In such instances, difficu...

The intraarterial treatment of carotid-cavernous fistulas can be carried out rationally by considering a number of different factors. These include the site of the fistula , its size, its supply, its clinical presentation, associated vascular injuries, and the tolerance to carotid occlusion by a direct intraarterial balloon test. Careful attention to these features and familiarity with a variet...

Staphylococcus aureus encoding Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) genes has become the cause of life-threatening infections. We describe a case of carotid cavernous fistula after bacteremia in a 12-year-old male, caused by a methicillin-susceptible S. aureus isolate carrying the pvl, fnbA, and ebpS genes and related to sequence type 25 (ST25). The patient's condition was complicated by pleural e...

BACKGROUND Cavernous carotid aneurysm (CCA) represents 2-9% of all intracranial aneurysms and 15% of internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysms; additionally, giant aneurysms are those aneurysms that are > 25 mm in size. Bilateral CCAs account for 11-29% of patients and are commonly associated with structural weaknesses in the ICA wall, secondary to systemic hypertension. CCAs are considered benig...