Acute Spontaneous Posterior Fossa Subdural Hematoma

Acute posterior fossa subdural hematomas are rare and most of them are trauma-related. Non-traumatic ones have been reported in patients who had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura or those who had been receiving anticoagulant therapy. We report on the case of 57-year-old Iranian man who developed sudden severe occipital headache, drowsiness, repeated vomiting, and instability of stance and gait. He was neither hypertensive nor diabetic. No history of head trauma was obtained and he denied illicit drug or alcohol ingestion. A preliminary diagnosis of acute intra-cerebellar hemorrhage was made. His CT brain scan revealed an acute right-sided, extra-axial, crescent-shaped hyperdense area at the posterior fossa. His routine blood tests, platelets count, bleeding time, and coagulation profile were unremarkable. The patient had spontaneous acute infratentorial subdural hematoma. He was treated conservatively and discharged home well after 5 days. Since then, we could not follow-up him, clinically and radiologically because he went back to Iran. Our patient's presentation, clinical course, and imaging study have called for conservative management, as the overall presentation was relatively benign. Unless the diagnosis is entertained and the CT brain scan is well-interpreted, the diagnosis may easily escape detection.