Successful Intravenous Thrombolysis for A Common Carotid Artery Dissection Stroke Revealing Takayasu’s Arteritis: A Case Report from Cameroon

Abstract

Takayasu’s arteritis is an inflammatory disease of large vessels, mainly the aorta and its branches. It is rare in persons of African descent and infrequently reveals itself by stroke and even more rarely causes arterial dissection. We report the case of a 26-year-old lady, who suffered a left total middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke caused by an extracranial carotid artery dissection. She met 4 out of 6 criteria of the 1990 American College of Rheumatology for Takayasu’s arteritis. She successfully underwent intravenous (IV) thrombolysis using Tenecteplase and was subsequently started on steroids and methotrexate. After three months of follow-up, she was functionally independent with a modified Rankin score (mRs) of +1 and had no signs of active Takayasu’s disease. This report adds to the data on acute reperfusion therapy in ischemic stroke due to Takayasu’s arteritis and represents to the best of our knowledge the first reported case of successful IV thrombolysis in Cameroon.