title: Developmental venous anomalies with capillary stain: a subgroup of symptomatic DVAs?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Intracranial developmental venous anomalies (DVAs) are considered benign vascular dispositions; they are asymptomatic in the vast majority of cases. They represent extreme variations of the venous drainage and may rarely be responsible for focal venous ischemia leading to neurological dysfunction. The aim of the study is to analyze a group of patients with symptomatic DVAs with capillary stain at angiography.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively reviewed the clinical and radiological features of patients in which a DVA was considered the cause of a neurological event. In all the patients, the DVA was suspected by angio-CT or MRI and conventional angiography was performed to detail the angioarchitecture of the DVA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 7 patients and 11 DVAs were identified; three patients had multiple DVAs. Three DVAs were frontal, two were parietal, two were thalamic, one was in the midbrain, and three were cerebellar. Patients presented with progressive neurological deficits, seizures, or cerebral hemorrhage. All these DVAs were associated with a peculiar capillary stain at angiography.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although being normal anatomical variations, DVAs may create, because of hemodynamic unbalance, venous ischemia that induces angiogenic phenomena. MRI shows the suffering of the brain and angiography witnesses this angiogenesis under the form of capillary stain. Conventional angiography can thus provide useful information to recognize "atypical" symptomatic DVAs.
authors.affiliation: Service de Neuroradiologie Diagnostique et Thérapeutique, Hôpital Foch, 40 rue Worth, Suresnes, France.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Roccatagliata
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van den Berg
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soderman
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boulin
authors.forename: Stéphanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Condette-Auliac
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rodesch
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002196:Capillaries; D002533:Cerebral Angiography; D002550:Cerebral Veins / Q000002:abnormalities*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D002538:Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed