Part of the Nervous System Diseases Commons, and the Neurology Commons Recommended Citation

Cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) is a potentially life-threatening condition requiring rapid diagnosis and urgent treatment. Heparin anticoagulation is the time-hon-oured treatment, and is advocated in all cases of CVT, irre-spective of etiology or presence of haemorrhage. The sup-portive evidence is largely observational; data from ran-domized placebo-controlled trials shows a nonsignificant trend favouring heparin. Current practice is to begin heparin (unfractionated or low-molecular weight) immediately on confirmation of the diagnosis. Newer anti-thrombotic agents such as ximelagatran may offer advantages over heparin and need to be investigated in the treatment of CVT