[Post-traumatic occlusion of the anterior cerebral artery]

A rare case with cerebral infarction in the region of the anterior cerebral artery after minor head injury is reported. A 44-year-old male sustained a blow in the occipital area and became unconscious for a moment when he was driving a car and was involved in a rear-end collision. There being no significant signs, he drove home. About 30 minutes after the traffic accident, he felt weakness in the right limbs and speech difficulty and immediately visited our clinic. The patient was alert, but right hemiparesis and mild motor aphasia were present. There was no apparent evidence of head injury. A plain skull roentgenogram revealed no fracture. Computed tomography two hours after the trauma was normal. A left carotid angiogram showed an evident dilatation of A2 and the proximal portion of A3 of the anterior cerebral artery, tapering off to an occlusion of the callosomarginal artery in the arterial phase, delayed filling of the anterior cerebral artery in the capillary phase, and pooling of the callosomarginal artery in the venous phase. Three days later, computed tomography showed a low density area on the medial surface of the left frontal lobe. The symptoms of the patient improved with conservative treatment. Sequential changes in angiographic findings were observed. One month after admission, severe irregularity and stenosis of the pericallosal artery and revascularization of the callosomarginal artery was noted. By this time most of his symptoms had disappeared. Two months after admission, stenosis of the pericallosal artery increased. Three months after admission the stenosis improved slightly. The patient was discharged with no neurological deficit. Seven months after the initial trauma, a left carotid angiogram showed further regression of the stenosis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)