Uncommon Causes of Cerebral Microbleeds

Background Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are small and round perivascular hemosiderin depositions detectable by gradient echo sequences or susceptibility-weighted imaging. Cerebral microbleeds are common among patients with hypertension, cerebral ischemia, or cerebral amyloid angiopathy. In this article, we describe uncommon causes of CMBs. Methods We searched Pubmed with the keyword CMBs for relevant studies and looked for different uncommon causes of CMBs. Results CMBs have several uncommon etiologies including posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, infective endocarditis, brain radiation therapy, cocaine abuse, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, traumatic brain injury, intravascular lymphomatosis or proliferating angio-endotheliomatosis, moyamoya disease, sickle cell anemia/β-thalassemia, cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy subcortical infarcts, and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL), genetic syndromes, or obstructive sleep apnea. Conclusions Understanding the uncommon causes of CMBs is not only helpful in diagnosis and prognosis of some of these rare diseases, but can also help in better understanding different pathophysiology involved in the development of CMBs.