Pontine small capillary telangiectasias: Serious potential consequences of MR misinterpretation
Capillary telangiectasia is a cluster of dilated vessels without smooth muscle or elastic fibers. These vessels are separated by normal brain parenchyma and usually measure less than 30 microns in diameter. Capillary telangiectasia is almost always an asymptomatic entity causing no clinical complications, like bleeding or seizures, compared to other neurovascular malformations [1–4]. However, this benign vascular abnormality may, due to misinterpretation, create serious potential consequences. We herein report three case examples. The first patient was an 11-year-old boy with a history of somnolence and confusion three weeks after head trauma. On a magnetic resonance (MR) examination performed elsewhere, a small hypointense lesion was noted in the pons on the T2-weighted (T2W) sequence, and confirmed by the gradient-echo T2W sequence (TR = 800 ms, TE = 26 ms, and flip angle = 20 degrees) in this institution on a 1.5-Tesla MR imaging unit (Siemens Magnetom SP63 4000), and was inter-