Papers of the Week

A 41-year-old woman experienced back pain upon waking up. Immediately afterward, she experienced a continual orthostatic headache. Thereafter, right ear fullness and dizziness also occurred. One month later, she became aware of repeated numbness that started in the right hand and spread to the right half of the body and lower limbs and continued for repeated periods of approximately 20-30 min. Neurological examination revealed no abnormal findings except for orthostatic headache. Electroencephalography showed no epileptic discharge. Head MRI revealed left convexal subarachnoid hemorrhage (cSAH) restricted to the prefrontal sulcus, left frontal cerebral venous thrombosis, diffuse dural thickening with gadolinium enhancement, and subdural hematoma in the posterior cranial fossa. Spinal MRI revealed epidural fluid accumulation around the thoracic spine. CT myelography revealed cerebrospinal fluid leakages at the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar vertebrae levels. The patient was diagnosed with spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH), which was treated effectively with a blood patch. In this case, cSAH may have resulted from rupturing of the vessel wall as a result of cortical venous thrombosis induced by SIH. The repeated transient neurologic symptoms suggesting migraine aura may have originated from cSAH, which in turn led to cortical spreading depression. The diagnosis and management of SIH can be often difficult; therefore, repeated migraine-aura-like symptoms are a critical sign of complication with cSAH and cortical venous thrombosis.