Familial cerebral amyloid angiopathy related to stroke and dementia.

The term cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) refers to the specific deposition of amyloid fibrils in the walls of leptomeningeal and cortical arteries, arterioles and, although less frequently in capillaries and veins. It is commonly associated with Alzheimers disease, Down's syndrome and normal aging, as well as with a variety of familial conditions related to stroke and/or dementia: hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis of Icelandic type (HCHWA-I), various inherited disorders linked to Abeta mutants (including the Dutch variant of HCHWA), and the recently described chromosome 13 familial dementia in British and Danish kindreds. This review focuses on four different types of hereditary CAA, emphasizing the notion that CAA is not only related to stroke but also to neurodegeneration and dementia of the Alzheimer's type.