Chronic encapsulated intracerebral hematoma--a well-defined disease. Report on two cases and review of the literature.

Chronic encapsulated intracerebral hematoma (CEIH) is a rare disease which is believed to be caused by angiographically negative vascular malformations. CEIH has the following characteristic findings: 1. It affects all age groups 2. Clinical symptoms progress slowly after sudden onset. Often there is a latency of months or years 3. There is no correlation with arterial hypertension 4. Imaging reveals a typical fibrous capsule with enclosed blood contents and signs of recurrent bleedings 5. Cavernoma was identified histologically as the cause of bleeding in 30% of cases. 6. All patients had a primary diagnosis of intracerebral tumor. To the best of our knowledge, 27 cases have been reported in the literature. We now add two cases, one of which is the first in the available literature which was not operated and could be followed by imaging.