Calcification on CT scan

[Romy]

Hi everybody,

I have an asymptomatic cavernoma in the right thalamus, for which I have an MRI every two years, and for the last +/- 15 years it hasn't moved or grown a milimeter.
So I've not been worrying too much about it (anymore).

However... a couple of months ago I had a very bad episode of migraine... for the first time in my life. I've had a migraine aura a couple of years ago, but the headache never came, at that time.
Because I work in a hospital, I asked my colleague neurologist about my migraine, and told her about my CM, so she was worried that it might be bleeding and she sent me to a CT scan immediately. The CT-scan showed that this cavernoma had not bled, but it was really heavily calcified (6 weeks later I also had a MRI, which showed absolutely no change in comparison to previous MRI's). It actually looked like I have a rock in my head
(It was my first brain CT ever)

Now my question: does this calcification mean something? Does anyone else have had a CT-scan and did it also show calcification? Can something be concluded eg. am I now less, or more, prone to bleeding?

Just wondering.

Greetings,

Romy

[Michelle2000]

Romy,

I don't know anything about calcification and bleeding risk, other than I heard a piece on the radio a few days ago about Parkinsons or something. Medical researchers always thought calcifications (plural) in some particular brain region (I can't remember which region) were the cause of the disease symptoms, but they learned that there are lots of people who have calcifications in that region that don't have any of the symptoms. So it sounded to me like the calcifications might be important, but they might not be. (I hope that wasn't too confusing - since I didn't remember much of the story.)

There was a woman who posted here maybe in 2011 or so who had a scan that showed her lesion calcified, but her doctor wasn't concerned, and she decided that when she made a mistake or forgot something she could just say it was because she had rocks in her head.

Best wishes,

Michelle

[Connie Lee]

Hi Romy,
From what I understand, calcification is part of the life cycle of a cavernoma and would not be unexpected in an older, inactive lesion. I'm not sure whether it is indicative that a lesion is no longer able to hemorrhage, but I can ask our scientific advisory board to get their thoughts.

[Abhi]

Hi
I am a MBBS student and unfortunately I am also having multiple cavernomas.
Calcification occurs in some worm infections.
CT scan is gross as compared to MRI that's why cavernoma also looks like calcified tissue in brain but it actually is cavernoma which can be differentiated by MRI.