[Cerebral vasculitis]

Cerebral vasculitis embraces a wide range of conditions that are characterised by involvement of the vessels of the central nervous system (CNS) due to inflammation of their walls, which in turn leads to occlusion or the formation of aneurysms with the ensuing ischaemic-haemorrhagic disorders this produces.

In cases of cerebral vasculitis perhaps only the vessels of the CNS (isolated angiitis of the CNS) are involved, or they may be just another of the affected territories to be found in primary or secondary systemic angiitis (due to infection, collagen diseases, drugs, tumours). Neurological symptoms and lab tests are usually rather unspecific. The latest neuroimaging techniques are more useful, and the gold standard among them is digital angiography, although its sensitivity and specificity are limited. Brain tissue biopsy allows for confirmation of the diagnosis and is the gold standard for the diagnosis of isolated angiitis of CNS. A large group of conditions (which may be metabolic, demyelinating, vascular, infectious, and other peripheral vascular diseases) have similar clinical and imaging features, which makes it necessary to consider the differential diagnosis.

Involvement of the nervous system casts a shadow over the prognosis in most cases of vasculitis and can be severe, as in isolated vasculitis of large vessels or in Takayasu's disease, or more benign, as in isolated vasculitis of small vessels and in other primary vasculitis. Treatment with corticoids and immunosuppressant agents, as well as anticoagulant and/or antiaggregating therapy, must be considered in each particular case according to the clinical condition and the progression of each patient.