Ischemic Complication of a Cerebral Developmental Venous Anomaly: Case Report and Review of the Literature

We report a case of a nonhemorrhagic infarct associated with a thrombosed developmental venous anomaly (DVA), with secondary gliosis and Wallerian degeneration. The initial MRI scan showed an acute ischemic infarct in the region of the DVA, seen as a region of restricted diffusion on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), with later development of encephalomalacia and Wallerian degeneration on follow-up MRI. No blood products were seen. We believe that thrombosis of the collector vein of a DVA with associated infarction is a rare but possible complication that should be considered within the proper clinical setting and can be easily and confidently diagnosed by means of DWI.