Thrombosed traumatic aneurysm of the occipital artery: a case report and review of the literature

INTRODUCTION: Occipital artery aneurysms are very rare vascular lesions. Most cases reported in the literature have been post-traumatic pseudoaneurysms of the occipital artery. CASE PRESENTATION: We report the case of a 14-year-old Caucasian boy presented with a painless non-pulsatile scalp mass that developed rapidly after minor blunt head trauma. The scalp mass was excised six months after the trauma. A pathologic diagnosis of a thrombosed true aneurysm was made. Our patient has had no recurrence of the mass at 15 months follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: We present a case of a true aneurysm of the occipital artery following minor head trauma. We review the literature for similar cases and discuss the difficulty of establishing a diagnosis prior to surgical intervention.