Familial intracranial hypertension: report of a case and review of the literature.

A mother and daughter are presented who had intracranial hypertension 5 years apart. Possible contributing factors were the presence of obesity and occasional asthma in both. A review of the literature reveals three other families with intracranial hypertension occurring in successive generations (suggesting autosomal dominant transmission) and four families with intracranial hypertension occurring in siblings (suggesting autosomal recessive transmission). No reported cases of familial intracranial hypertension have revealed a contributing cause.