Background and purpose: we compared the effectiveness of using computed tomographic angiography and venography (CTAV) with digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in young or nonhypertensive patients with acute spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage.
Methods: we prospectively recruited 109 young (age between 18 and 45 years) or nonhypertensive patients with acute spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage for this comparative study. All patients had CTAV using multidetector CT with 64 detectors. They were then scheduled to have catheter angiography the next day. Radiological data were collected for blinded analysis.
Results: DSA-positive pathologies causing hemorrhage were identified in 37 (33%) patients, which included cerebral arteriovenous malformation in 22 cases. The positive and negative predictive values of CTAV for DSA-positive pathologies causing hemorrhage were 97.3% (95% CI, 88.3%-99.9%) and 100% (95% CI, 95.9%-100%), respectively.
Conclusions: CTAV was able to detect DSA-positive pathologies causing acute spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage in young (age between 18 and 45 years) or nonhypertensive patients with high positive and negative predictive values.