Arteritis cerebral e involución psíquica en el niño. Presentación de un caso con buena respuesta al tratamiento

OBJECTIVE To show the importance of the cerebral arteritis as etiology of the language and the intellectual involution in children. CLINICAL CASE A boy started to show psychic and language involution since 18 months of life to arrive to an autistic behavior. After showing normal results in all the studies performed in order to investigate the possible etiologies, cerebral arteriography was performed. Cerebral arteritis affecting especially the right opercular artery was disclosed. Oral nicardipine administration was follow-up of a complete recuperation. CONCLUSIONS Cerebral arteritis is very seldom managed as the cause of intellectual and/or language involution in children as it also occurs with the syndrome of acquired aphasia. However, this pathology has a good response not only to corticoids but also to calcium channel antagonists as it occurred in our patient.