Cerebral vasculitis

The term vasculitis encompasses a heterogeneous group of disorders where inflammation and destruction of the vessel wall is the primary event. Classi?cation, based on vessel wall involved, has produced a clinically “workable” classification of the idiopathic vasculitides (Table 1), although much overlapping is seen in the clinical setting. Secondary vasculitides are associated with many infectious and multisystem noninfectious inflammatory diseases. Both idiopathic and secondary forms of vasculitis can cause cerebral vasculitis (Table 2). Patients with cerebral vasculitis can present with diverse complaints including, headaches, personality changes, psychiatric disturbances, intracranial hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, or seizures. Multisystem vasculitis can be complicated by a variety of metabolic, hematological, and cardiac disorders that, in turn, cause neurological dysfunction. As a result, caution should be exercised when attributing neurological symptoms to cerebral vasculitis in a patient with multisystem vasculitis [1-10].