The purpose of this report is to evaluate the validity of the differential diagnosis of epidural and subdural hematomas on the basis of the varied angiographic findings and also to determine the correlation between hematoma shape and the injury-angiogram time interval in subdural hematomas.
Conventional cerebral angiograms in 27 cases of epidural and 53 cases of subdural.hematoma among surgically proven 155 intracranial hematoma patients, observed at the Department of (Neurosurgery,) Seoul National University Hospital, during the past 5 years from August, 1968. to July, 1973, were reviewed.53 subdural hematomas were subdivided into three groups upon the injury-angiogram time interval as follows:
acute; within 48 hours 28 cases subacute; 3 days to 2 weeks 1.4 cases
chronic; over 2 weeks 11 cases The results were as follows:
1. In epidural hematoma, the A-P view of angiogram showed typical lentiform (biconvex)
avascular zone in 11 cases and crescent-shaped avascular zone in 3 cases among total 27 cases, whereas in acute to subacute subdural hematoma it showed crescent-shaped avascular zone in 15 cases but only 2 cases showed the lentiform appearance.
2. Lentiform avascular zone was also typically seen in 5 cases of chronic subdural hematoma,
but it might be differentiated from that of epidural hematoma with more clear inner margin in the former.
3. In epidural hematoma, the following characteristic findings providing excellent diagnostic aids were also noted.
1) medial or inward displacement of middle meningeal artery 3 cases
2) extravasation from middle meningeal artery into arterio-venous sheath 4 case into hematoma 2 cases
3) amputation of middle meningeal. artery
4) extravasation 2 cases from dural sinus 2 cases
5) displacement of dural sinus from the inner table of skull 4 cases
6) lentiform avascular zone only 4 cases
In 20 cases of epidural hematoma, one or more of the above findings could be found. Among them, extravasation from middle meningeal artery and dural sinus, amputation of middle meningeal artery and displacement of dural sinus were thought as pathognomonic. In subdural hematoma, none of the above findings was seen.
4. In subdural hematoma, hematoma shape (avascular zone) showed some tendency to change its from according to the injury-angiogram time interval: in the group ranging from I to 7 days and over a month, the crescent-shaped hematoma was predominant and in the group between these periods, lentiform hematoma and hematoma with flat inner margin were somewhat predominant. But there was no valid basis for predicting the age of subdural hematoma from its configuration at angiography.
5. There was no direct correlation between the shape of the hematoma and the patient´s age.
6. Simple skull roentgenogram provided some aids in the differential diagnosis between epidural and chronic subdural hematoma. 20 cases out of 27 epidural hematomas showed linear or depressed skull fracture, whereas only I out of 11 cases of chronic subdural hematoma showed linear skull fracture.
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