title: Three cases of spontaneous superficial temporal artery aneurysm with literature review.
abstract: Spontaneous, nontraumatic, superficial temporal artery (STA) aneurysms have been rarely reported. We herewith report three cases of spontaneous and true STA aneurysms. All patients, a 65-year-old male, a 76-year-old female, and a 47-year-old female, had no history of head trauma that requires medical attention. Painless, pulsatile, and slowly growing calvarial lump was the symptom leading to image studies. All the lumps were preoperatively diagnosed as STA aneurysms by magnetic resonance angiography and/or three-dimensional computed tomographic angiography. One case was accompanied by anterior communicating aneurysm. And another case was associated with two more scalp aneurysms arising from occipital artery and contralateral STA. Pathologic studies showed that all three were true aneurysms, with intact media and adventitia but without organized hematoma. Literature review showed that 8% of all STA aneurysms comprised spontaneous STA aneurysms. We found 32 cases (19 males and 13 females) of well-described spontaneous STA aneurysms including ours. Twenty-eight cases (87.5%) were true aneurysms. Seven cases (21.9%) had coexisting vascular lesions. Five (15.6%) of these seven cases were diagnosed with cerebral or abdominal aneurysm. Multiple scalp aneurysms are quite rare; only two cases including ours have been reported. It seems important to know that spontaneous STA aneurysms may coexist with other vascular lesions including intracranial aneurysm.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Kagoshima University.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kawai
authors.forename: Tadashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hamasaki
authors.forename: Junnichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Imamura
authors.forename: Norio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tomonori
authors.forename: Takuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Odashiro
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamahata
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tokimura
authors.forename: Mitsuharu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nomoto
authors.forename: Kazunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Arita
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002533:Cerebral Angiography; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D002532:Intracranial Aneurysm / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D035583:Rare Diseases; D012535:Scalp / Q000098:blood supply; D013699:Temporal Arteries / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed