Intracranial Vascular Damage Associated with Skull Fractures

Intracranial vascular damage of the meningeal and cortical arteries associated with skull fractures include deformity of these vessels, slow flow, retrograde flow, traumatic aneurysm, extravasation of blood and contrast medium at the fracture site, epidural, subdural, and intracerebral hematoma formation, and rarely arteriovenous fistulas formation. Many of these changes are relatively common, but often high quality cerebral angiography is essential for their delineation. Twelve cases are presented to demonstrate these various forms of vascular damage.