Abstract
SUMMARY: In accelerated hypertension, vasogenic brain edema associated with PRES may represent either autoregulatory breakthrough leading to vasodilation or excessive autoregulation leading to vasoconstriction. We describe 2 patients with PRES in accelerated hypertension who had serous retinal detachments, a vasoconstrictive phenomenon. The concurrence of serous retinal detachment and PRES offers intriguing support for the idea that vasoconstriction rather than vasodilation is the mechanism of vasogenic edema in PRES.
ABBREVIATIONS
- CCA
- catheter cerebral angiography
- DWI
- diffusion-weighted imaging
- FLAIR
- fluid-attenuated inversion recovery
- MRA
- MR angiography
- PCA
- posterior cerebral artery
- PRES
- posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome
- RPE
- retinal pigment epithelium
- © 2011 by American Journal of Neuroradiology