Intracerebral hemorrhage in two patients with Down's syndrome and cerebral amyloid angiopathy.

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is an important cause of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhages in the elderly and is often seen in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, Down's syndrome (DS), and hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis of the Dutch type. We report two patients with DS and extensive CAA who died of intracerebral hemorrhage; only two other such case reports exist in the literature. We believe the incidence of such cases is higher than is reported and that the likelihood of hemorrhage in the setting of CAA is independent of the patient's underlying disease.