Multiple intracranial calcifications

Intracranial calcifications are common in certain locations and often are of no clinical concern.

The two most commonly encountered types of calcification include: 

• normal age-related intracranial calcifications
• intracranial arterial atherosclerosis

Concerning calcifications are much less common and occur in a variety of settings, including ³

• infection
  • neurocysticercosis
  • cerebral toxoplasmosis
  • TORCH infection
• metabolic
  • hypoparathyroidism
  • pseudohypoparathyroidism
  • Fahr disease
• previous cerebral insult
  • healed cerebral abscess
  • healed infarct
  • healed hematoma
• vascular malformation
  • cerebral AVM
  • Sturge-Weber syndrome
  • von Hippel-Lindau syndrome
• radiation
  • mineralizing microangiopathy
• neurodegeneration
  • adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP) ³
  • Urbach-Wiethe disease

In these cases it is also important to exclude normal calcifications.