Factors Influencing the Incidence of Papilledema in Patients with Cerebral Venous Thrombosis

Background: Cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) is an uncommon cerebrovascular disease with a wide spectrum of symptoms and severity. This study analyzes the factors influencing the incidence of papilledema in patients with cerebral venous thrombosis.

Materials and methods: In this research 65 patients with CVT were examined between 2011 and 2013, and the patients were followed up one, three, six, and twelve months after the initial diagnosis. They were separated into two groups according to presence or absence of papilledema. We analyzed the frequency of symptoms and risk factors of cerebral venous thrombosis and the intensity of papilledema as time passed, as also the frequency of the involved sinus, in two groups of patients with and without papilledema.

Results: This study showed that the most common symptom was headache, with a frequency of 92.3% and the least common symptoms were ataxia and quadriparesis, with a frequency of 1.5%. The most common risk factors were high waist circumference (WC) and oral contraceptive pil (OCP) use, and also in patients with papilledema the intensity is reduced as time passes.

Conclusion: This investigation showed that there was no significant relation between the frequency of risk factors and symptoms and intensity of papilledema as time passed in the two groups. The results showed that the most common sinuses involved in patients with papilledema were sagittal and lateral sinuses, which included 66.7%, and the most common sinus involved in patients without papilledema, which was the lateral sinus that included 40%.