Post-traumatic Oculomotor Nerve Palsy due to Intraneural Hemorrhage: A Case Report

Oculomotor nerve palsy following traumatic brain injury is a rare entity. A head injury can result in diffuse neuronal axonal injury with subsequent microbleed within the nerve tissue. We report an unusual case of a patient who presented with complete isolated right third nerve palsy following a road traffic accident. In this patient, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed swelling and edema of the right oculomotor nerve along its cisternal segment with contrast enhancement. The acquisition of susceptibility-weighted images on MRI helped to clinch the diagnosis of intraneural hemorrhage as a cause of post-traumatic oculomotor nerve palsy.