Encephalotrigeminal Angiomatosis: A Review with Emphasis on Head and Neck Manifestations

Encephalotrigeminal angiomatosis, also known as Sturge-Weber syndrome or Sturge-Weber-Dimitri disease, is a sporadic congenital neurocutaneous syndrome characterized by angiomas of the face, eyes, and meninges. The typical clinical findings include seizures, a port-wine facial nevus, hemiparesis, and developmental delay. The classic intracranial imaging features of Sturge-Weber syndrome include cerebral hemispheric atrophy, hypervascularity and/or calcification of the cortex, and ipsilateral choroid plexus enlargement. Extracranial findings primarily include the vascular abnormalities of the ocular and facial soft tissues as well as hypertrophy of the calvarial and maxillofacial osseous structures. Additionally, we report involvement of the extraocular muscles, salivary glands, and lacrimal glands, findings that have not been well described in the literature. While a developmental venous pathology underlying Sturge-Weber syndrome has been proposed resulting in many of the findings, the mechanism behind the facial soft-tissue abnormalities and the clinical sequelae associated with these glandular abnormalities is still uncertain.

Learning Objective: To recognize typical clinical and various imaging manifestations of Sturge-Weber syndrome, including head and neck and intracranial imaging findings