A case of hypertensive intraventricular hemorrhage bled from the hippocampus

The hippocampus is not a usual origin of bleeding due to hypertension. A 66-year-old male suffered from headache and abnormal behavior. Computed tomographic images showed an intraventricular hemorrhage predominantly located in the right lateral ventricle. His arterial blood pressure was 198/92 mmHg on admission. No apparent vascular anomaly was demonstrated on a digital subtraction angiogram. Two months after the onset, his mini-mental status examination showed full recovery from the score of 19 at onset, and most of his memory disturbances were improved except for visual memory disturbance. A follow-up magnetic resonance image revealed that the hemosiderin was stained in the atrophic right hippocampus, and the final diagnosis was hypertensive intraventricular hemorrhage bled from the right hippocampus. It is difficult to diagnose hippocampal hemorrhage immediately when it is combined with intraventricular hemorrhage, because the hippocampus is covered with hematoma in the inferior horn. Moreover, with regard to neurologic examination, the patients do not show any focal sign such as hemiparesis or aphasia. In elderly patients with compensatory ventricular dilatation, one must also be attentive to a misdiagnosis of obstructive hydrocephalus due to intraventricular hemorrhage.