Mitochondrial arteriopathy as a cause of spontaneous dissection of cerebral arteries

: The vascular wall weakness caused by dysplastic alterations predisposes to the spontaneous dissection of cerebral arteries. The authors hypothesized for the first time that dysplasia might be the result of mitochondrial cytopathy. To test this hypothesis, the muscle biopsy was conducted in 3 male patients, aged 30-38 years, with the spontaneous dissection of the internal carotid (2) and posterior cerebral (1) arteries. Clinically dissections manifested by ischemic stroke (2) or the peripheral paresis of the hypoglossal nerve (1). The morphological study of fresh frozen sections of muscle by modified Gomori trichrome method revealed ragged-red fibers The histochemical study showed the severe decrease of the stain on succinate dehydrogenase and cytochrome-c-oxidase as well as the focal intensive staining of peripheral regions of muscle fibers. The complex of found changes is characteristic for a mitochondrial pathology. No patients had A3243G tRNA gene mutation, the most common mutation for MELAS. The serum lactate level was elevated only in one patient. We suggest that the mitochondrial disorder occurs not only in muscle, but also in cerebral artery wall--mitochondrial arteriopathy, which predisposes to spontaneous cerebral artery dissection.