Published in:
Open Access 01-12-2012 | Case report
Thrombosed traumatic aneurysm of the occipital artery: a case report and review of the literature
Published in: Journal of Medical Case Reports | Issue 1/2012
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Introduction
Occipital artery aneurysms are very rare vascular lesions. Most cases reported in the literature have been post-traumatic pseudoaneurysms of the occipital artery.
Case presentation
We report the case of a 14-year-old Caucasian boy presented with a painless non-pulsatile scalp mass that developed rapidly after minor blunt head trauma. The scalp mass was excised six months after the trauma. A pathologic diagnosis of a thrombosed true aneurysm was made. Our patient has had no recurrence of the mass at 15 months follow-up.
Conclusions
We present a case of a true aneurysm of the occipital artery following minor head trauma. We review the literature for similar cases and discuss the difficulty of establishing a diagnosis prior to surgical intervention.