Traumatic arteriovenous fistula treated by superselective embolisation with microcoils: case report

A 27-year-old man with a traumatic direct dural arteriovenous fistula (DAVF) was treated using embolisation microcoils. He had suffered blunt trauma to the head while drunk and was aware of no neurological deficit. A few days after the accident, however, he noticed a bruit in the right temple. Angiography demonstrated a direct DAVF fed by the right middle meningeal artery and draining into a right temporal dural vein and the ipsilateral cavernous sinus. A Tracker-18 catheter was passed without difficulty through the fistula and the draining vein was then embolised from distal to proximal with microcoils, and finally the fistula was occluded with microcoils, resulting in total obliteration of the fistula. Immediately after the embolisation, the patient could no longer hear the bruit. Thus, when a microcatheter can be introduced into the draining vein, microcoils can be used as emboli in the treatment of direct DAVF.