Uncommon Anatomical Variants of the Dural Venous Sinuses: A Case Series Highlighting Diagnostic Pitfalls in MR Venography

Document Type : Original Article

Author

The Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo* and Fayoum** Universities

10.21608/mjcu.2025.464477

Abstract

Background: Recognizing normal variants of the dural venous sinuses is essential to avoid misdiagnosing them as pa-thology, particularly venous sinus thrombosis. Aim of Study: To present a series of uncommon anatom-ical variations of the dural venous sinuses observed on MR venography that were initially suspected to represent vascular pathology. Patients and Methods: From a larger cohort of patients undergoing MR venography, we present seven selected cases that demonstrated rare anatomical variants mimicking vascu-lar pathology. Imaging was performed using a 1.5 Tesla MRI scanner with 3D MRV and conventional MRI sequences. Results: - Case 1: Hypoplastic left transverse and sigmoid sinuses mim-icking left-sided thrombosis. - Case 2: Aplasia of the anterior one-third of the superior sagit-tal sinus with compensatory bilateral cortical drainage. - Case 3: Bifurcated superior sagittal sinus simulating venous duplication or thrombus. - Case 4: Bilateral persistent occipital sinuses associated with transverse sinus aplasia. - Case 5: Persistent anterior falcine sinus mimicking an en-hancing interhemispheric mass. - Case 6: Persistent falcine sinus associated with aplastic straight sinus. - Case 7: Aneurysmal dilatation of the torcular herophili mim-icking vein of Galen malformation. 
Conclusion: Understanding and identifying anatomical variants of the dural venous sinuses on MR venography is criti-cal to prevent misinterpretation and unnecessary interventions. MRV readers should be aware of these patterns to distinguish them from true vascular pathologies.

Keywords

The Medical Journal of Cairo University
Volume 93, Issue 09
September 2025
Pages 1495-1500

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics