Abstract
Aneurysms of the distal anterior inferior cerebellar artery (AICA) are very rare, occurring in 0.03-0.5% of cerebral aneurysms. We report 2 cases of distal AICA aneurysms at the internal auditory meatus.
In 1 of them, the whole aneurysm was located in the internal acoustic meatus. Such an aneurysm is called an intrameatal aneurysm, which is an extremely rare type of distal AICA aneurysm with only 7 cases reported in the literature.
Both of our patients presented with subarachnoid hemorrhage and were treated with early clipping surgery via the lateral suboccipital approach. The clipping was successful and they recovered uneventfully, but continued to have a hearing loss.
We provide a review of the literature and a discussion of possible causes of 8th cranial nerve impairment in distal AICA aneurysms.
