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Background: To identify patients with spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage for whom CT angiography alone can exclude ruptured aneurysms. Methods: An observational retrospective review was carried out of all consecutive patients with non-traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage who underwent both CT angiography and catheter angiography to exclude an aneurysm. CT angiography negative cases (no aneurysm) were classified according to their CT hemorrhage pattern as "aneurismal", "perimesencephalic" or as "no-hemorrhage." Results: Two hundred and forty-one patients were included. A CT angiography aneurysm detection sensitivity and specificity of 96.4% and 96.0% were observed. All 35 cases of perimesencephalic or no-hemorrhage out of 78 CT angiography negatives also had negative angiography findings. Conclusions: CT angiography is self-reliant to exclude ruptured aneurysms when either a perimesencephalic hemorrhage or no-hemorrhage pattern is identified on the CT within a week of symptom onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To evaluate the role of computed tomography angiography (CTA) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in the quantification of atherosclerotic stenosis of carotid artery bifurcation in comparison with digital substraction angiography (DSA) and Doppler sonography (DS). Materials and Methods: Twenty-five patients with atherosclerotic disease of the carotid arteries with proven stenosis by DSA, had spiral CTA, MRA using two- and three-dimensional time-of-flight gradient echo techniques, and DS using Doppler flow signal recording (total 47 carotid artery bifurcations). The degree of stenosis was measured according to the North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial criteria: total occlusion (100%), severe (70–99%), moderate (30–69%) and mild (0–29%). The degree of stenosis measured by CTA, MRA and DS was compared to DSA, used as the gold standard. Results: Ninety-seven percent of MRA measures were equivalent to DSA, and 3% were underestimated; 96% of CTA measures were equivalent to DSA, and 4% were underestimated; 77% of DS measures were equivalent to DSA, 21% were overestimated and 2% were underestimated. Conclusions: CTA and MRA are equally accurate methods in quantifying the degree of carotid bifurcation stenosis.Copyright © 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the case of a 77-year-old man who was doubted to have a giant cell arteritis after developing headaches, jaw claudication and diplopia. The man underwent a computed tomography (CT) angiography of the extracranial arteries and has revealed luminal narrowing and mural thickening with skip lesions inflammation along his right superficial temporal artery. It notes that the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis was proven after he had biopsy.