It is an alteration in the development of cerebral vascularization that causes the appearance of cerebral vessels (veins or arteries) with alterations in their structure that make them more fragile, and therefore with a greater tendency to rupture and cause a cerebral hemorrhage or hemorrhagic stroke.
As for their causes, it is known that they are genetically determined alterations, although the exact mechanism is unknown for most of the different types of vascular malformations. With few exceptions, the fact that their origin has a genetic basis does not mean that they are hereditary, although in some cases it is necessary to rule out this possibility.
Most of these lesions are asymptomatic and only become evident at the moment of rupture, causing cerebral hemorrhage. Some of them may manifest in the form of epilepsy and more rarely with neurological signs such as progressive headache, visual disturbances (double vision or loss of visual acuity).
Appropriate treatment
In the case of a malformation that manifests itself as hemorrhage, the treatment will depend on the volume of bleeding and its impact on the clinical condition of the patient, so that small hemorrhages can be treated symptomatically with analgesia, rest and specific medication, always admitted to a hospital, to larger hemorrhages that may require surgical evacuation when the volume of bleeding can compromise the patient’s life or leave irreversible sequelae.
A second point, no less important, is the treatment of the cause of the hemorrhage, i.e. the vascular malformation itself. Depending on the type of lesion, current technology makes it possible to treat and eradicate these lesions with procedures called endovascular (cerebral artery catheterization), with surgery to remove the lesion and even with radiosurgery (a particular type of radiotherapy), with the combination of these three techniques not infrequently being used to achieve the best possible result.