Hypertensive Fibrinoid Arteritis of the Brain and Gross Cerebral Hemorrhage

Abstract

Stroke, apoplexy, and cerebral vascular accident are clinical terms applied to the situation resulting from a sudden major injury to the brain due to disease of the cerebral blood vessels and/or alteration of the cerebral circulation. Pathologically, the cerebral lesion in such circumstances is an infarct or a hemorrhage. The infarct, an area of necrosis due to ischemia, may be associated with a varying degree of hemorrhage in the form of isolated or confluent petechiae, and this hemorrhage may be minimal, moderate, or severe in degree. Even when the extravasation of blood into an infarct is severe, such hemorrhagic infarct should be distinguished fundamentally from a cerebral hemorrhage. The latter is characterized by a gross extravasation of blood into the cerebral tissues without obvious necrosis, except at the periphery of the hemorrhage, where the necrosis may be secondary to compression of the tissues or of the associated vessels. The separate