Cerebral venous thrombosis causes

This category includes patients with rare causes of strokes such as nonatherosclero-tic vasculopathies, cerebral venous thrombosis, hypercoagulable states, or hematologic disorders. Two such disorders are discussed below. 

Thrombosis in the dural sinuses or cerebral veins is much less common than cerebral arterial thromboembolism. It causes a variety of clinical syndromes, which often do not resemble stroke (Bousser and Ross Russell 1997). While ischemic arterial stroke and cerebral venous thrombosis share some causes (Southwick et al. 1986), others are specific to cerebral venous thrombosis (Table 29.1). A particularly high index of suspicion is required in women on the oral contraceptive pill (Saadatnia and Tajmirriahi 2007) and in the puerperium. In the past, cerebral venous thrombosis was strongly associated with otitis media and mastoiditis, lateral sinus thrombosis or otitic hydrocephalus, but the most common causes are now pregnancy and the puerperium, which cause 5-20% of the cerebral venous thrombosis in the developed world, the oral contraceptive pill, malignancy, dehydration, inflammatory disorders and hereditary coagulation disorders. No cause is found in around 20% of cases. 

Canhao P, Ferro JM, Lindgren AG et al. (2005). Causes and predictors of death in cerebral venous thrombosis. Stroke 36 1720-1725... 

About 1% of all acute strokes or stroke-hke events are caused by cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT). Thromboses can be located in the intracranial dural sinuses, in the superficial cerebral veins or in the deep cerebral veins. 

Neurological involvement in Behcet s disease may be subclassified into two major forms a vascular-inflammatory process with focal or multifocal parenchymal involvement and a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis with intracranial hypertension. The vasculitis and meningitis may affect cerebral arteries, particularly in the posterior circulation, to cause ischemic stroke and possibly intracranial hemorrhage (Farah et al. 1998 Krespi et al 2001 Siva et al. 2004 Borhani Haghighi et al. 2005). 

Young (<50 years) and no other cause found past history or family history of venous thrombosis, especially if unusual site (cerebral, mesenteric, hepatic veins) recurrent miscarriage thrombocytopenia cardiac valve vegetations livedo reticularis raised ESR malaise positive syphilis serology... 

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