Cerebral edema

What it means

Abnormal accumulation of fluid in the brain.

Cerebral edema refers to swelling within brain tissue due to the accumulation of fluid, and can occur as in response to almost any insulting agent. Edema canbe observed in and around regions of dead or dying brain, around metastases and abscesses, after traumatic injury, following hypoxic ischemic injury, and around primary brain tumors. There are at least five different types of edema: vasogenic, cytotoxic, hydrostatic, interstitial, and hypoosmotic. Three effects of edema are visible on imaging: (i) loss of gray-white matter differentiation; (ii) swelling of sulci (shrinking of gyri); and (iii) mass effects. On CT scanning, extensive low density may represent vasogenic edema. As the brain swells, not only do the sulci decrease, but all of the CSF spaces of the hemispheres (including the ventricles) decrease as well. Magnetic resonance tomography may show abnormalities of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and Fluid attenuation inversion recovery (FLAIR) sequences. Phenotype terms involving cerebral edema thus reflect inference about the underlying processes responsible for these abnormalities on brain imaging.

Rare diseases that can present with this20

The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions, and Orphanet separately records 1 disease where this sign is specifically absent. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.

Part of the broader category

Also called: Brain edema · Brain oedema · Brain swelling · Cerebral oedema