Sudden death from an epileptic seizure due to capillary telangiectasias in the hippocampus

Cerebral capillary telangiectasia (CCT) is a type of vascular malformation that is incidentally encountered in clinical practice. Diseased vessels are small and usually clinically benign over the course of a patient’s life. Although most CCT patients are asymptomatic, the situation becomes complicated when trauma is encountered. A case of sudden death due to an epileptic episode after very mild head trauma is reported, including a retrospective study of 12 cases, to remind peers to pay close attention to CCT especially when located in important functional regions of the brain. After immunohistochemical staining and pathological examination, we speculated that the epileptogenic mechanism of CCT may be similar to that of hippocampal sclerosis. As the definite epileptogenic mechanism of CCT in the hippocampus is still elusive, we suggest that more research should be conducted on CCT.