Acute lacunar stroke in association with angiogram-negative subarachnoid hemorrhage. Mechanistic implications of two cases.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Although there is much speculation regarding the source of bleeding in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage when no angiographic abnormality is found, little direct evidence has been obtained to document a cause. We report two cases of stroke in the distribution of a perforating or lenticulostriate artery occurring at the time of angiogram-negative subarachnoid hemorrhage.

CASE DESCRIPTIONS: A 68- and a 60-year-old man each presented with acute onset of headache and meningismus. Computed tomography (CT) revealed subarachnoid hemorrhage in a perimesencephalic pattern and in the left sylvian fissure, respectively. In both instances, immediate CT revealed evidence of an early infarction in the distribution of a perforating artery originating at the site of the subarachnoid blood. Both of these strokes were demonstrated to be acute by evolution on serial imaging studies. No source for the subarachnoid blood could be found in either patient in cerebral angiograms repeated at 2 weeks.

CONCLUSIONS

These observations suggest that in some cases of angiogram-negative subarachnoid hemorrhage the source of blood may be a small artery that is obliterated at the time of hemorrhage. This observation provides an explanation for the low rate of rehemorrhage among patients with angiogram-negative subarachnoid hemorrhage.