Cranial tomographic angiographic evaluation of suspected intracranial vascular abnormalities among a Nigerian cohort

Abstract

Background: Lately, there has been an increased utilization of computed tomography angiography (CTA) as the preferred first-line modality for the evaluation and diagnosis of most cerebral vascular lesions. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate suspected intracranial vascular cases, using CTA at a major referral tertiary hospital in South West Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a hospital-based retrospective study of suspected intracranial vascular cases in all ages and both sexes that had CTA from January 2011 to December 2018. Data were analyzed with IBM SPSS version 23.0, and P < 0.005 was considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 128 patients were studied, the mean age was 44.1 ± 17.7 years, and male: female ratio was 1:1.06. The leading clinical diagnoses were as follows: intracranial aneurysms (34/128), subarachnoid hemorrhage (27/128), intracranial vascular tumors (26/128), brain hemorrhage from vascular abnormality (19/128), and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) (10/128). At CTA, 61 patients had vascular abnormalities: intracranial aneurysm was seen in 63.9% with a peak age range of 41–60 years, and the leading location of aneurysms was posterior cerebral artery (18.8%), followed by posterior communicating artery (16.7%) and the cavernous segment of the internal carotid artery (16.7%). AVMs were more common in patients aged 40 years and below (91.7%) in males (66.7%) and in the parietal lobe. Intracranial aneurysms were 3.25 times as common as brain AVMs. Conclusion: Intracranial aneurysms are the predominant vascular lesions, occurring mostly in the older age group. AVMs occurred mostly in younger people, more in males, and predominantly in the parietal lobes. The hospital incidence of aneurysms to AVMs was 3.25:1.