Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

Overview :

CAA may affect patients over age 45, but is most common in patients over age 65, and becomes more common with increasing age. Men and women are equally affected. In some cases, CAA is sporadic but it may also be inherited as an autosomal dominant condition (a form of inheritance in which only one copy of a gene coding for a disease need be present for that disease to be expressed; if either parent has the disease, a child has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease). CAA is responsible for 5-20% of brain hemorrhage, and up to 30% of lobar hemorrhages localized to one lobe of the brain. CAA may be found during an autopsy in over one-third of persons over age 60, even though they may not have had brain hemorrhage, stroke, or other manifestations of the disease during life. In Alzheimer's disease, CAA is more common than in the general population, and may occur in more than 80% of patients over age 60.