Cerebral angiography in vasculitis affecting the nervous system

Of 199 patients with clinico-laboratory evidence of vasculitis, 42 were submitted to cerebral angiography; 35 angiograms were abnormal, but only 21 were characteristic of the particular disease process. A pattern consistent with vasculitis diagnosed in 19 angiograms, was due to neoplasm in 4 and neurofibromatosis, DXT and amphetamines each in 1 case. Moya-Moya type collaterals shown in 20 angiograms were due to the idiopathic disease in 10 but due to non-inflammatory pathologies in 7. Fibromuscular dysplasia shown in 28 angiograms was an incidental finding in 20 of these. Of 56 cerebral angiograms for ischaemic stroke in patients under 15 years old, 17 were normal and only 8 vascular lesions were likely to have been of inflammatory origin. In routine clinical practice cerebral angiography, though essential in the management of mycotic aneurysm and in the diagnosis of Moya-Moya disease isolated vasculitis and fibromuscular dysplasia, plays only a limited role in the diagnosis of other types of vasculitis.