Murphey's teat

Last revised by Jeremy Jones on 10 Feb 2024

Murphey’s teat, also known as Murphey’s tit or Murphey’s excrescence, refers to the cerebral angiographic finding of a focal outpouching within an intracranial aneurysm that indicates the likely site of rupture in a patient with subarachnoid hemorrhage 1,2. This sign, when present, is particularly useful for determining the culprit aneurysm in the setting of multiple aneurysms.

History and etymology

Francis Murphey (1906-1994 1) was an American neurosurgeon who, in 1958, reported three characteristic angiographic findings of a bleeding aneurysm: vasospasm of adjacent arteries, displacement of adjacent arteries, and “daughter aneurysms”, referring to the secondary sacculation of the culprit aneurysm 3.

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