Cerebral Angiographic Changes in the Drug Abuse Patient

Angiographic findings in a young man with recurrent stroke and positive fluorescent treponemal antibody (FTA).

“…Cerebral angiographic changes associated with drug abuse include irregular narrowing with "beading" of large and intermediate size vessels, and complete or partial occlusion of ves sels less than one millimeter in diameter. 22 Although our patient did not have a history of parenteral drug abuse, he had used drugs orally, and this use cannot be ruled out as a contributing factor in his angiopathy. This case shows some features of moyamoya disease but extracranial findings are not typical.…”

Current concepts of cerebrovascular disease--stroke: stroke and drug abuse.

“…The perivascular regions had infiltrates of neutrophils, lymphocytes, and eosinophils; involved ves- sels were often thrombosed or had local bulging regions producing a nodose-like appearance. Rumbaugh and colleagues 8 analyzed the angiographic features of a group of methamphetamine abusers and described beaded arteries, segmental changes in vessel caliber, and regions of slow flow. In monkeys given intravenous methamphetamine for two weeks, 9 angiography showed similar beading and segmental changes, and necropsy revealed small cerebral hemorrhages, zones of infarction, and microaneurysms.…”

Histopathological Changes Of Cerebral Vessels Secondary To Drug Abuse

“…Angiographic and histological studies in humans and experimental animals have shown that blood vessels of all diameters are involved in drug abuse vasculitis, but small vessel disease (small arterioles and capillaries) is prevalent (14)(15)(16)(17)(18). Since cerebral angiography and/or cerebral biopsy are necessary to establish diagnosis, the true incidence of drug abuse-associated vasculitis is unknown.…”