An autopsy case of acute subdural hematoma caused by rupture of arterio-venous malformation

A male high school student fell down during practice in Judo. He was diagnosed as acute subdural hematoma with a cranial CT, however a conservative therapy was performed because he was in a brain death. At seven days after admission he died and a medico-legal autopsy was performed at Kyushu University. There was a hematoma on right parietal and temporal lobe. Under this hematoma, two dilated and tortuous vascular lesions were detected, which were microscopically diagnosed as the arterio-venous malformation (AVM). There was no significant injury on his head. We considered that his cause of death was the spontaneous rupture of AVM rather than resulted from head injury, which was within a natural death.