Cerebral small vessel disease refers to a group of pathological processes, neuroimaging features, and clinical symptoms, with various etiologies that affect the small arteries, arterioles, venules, and capillaries of the brain. The onset of cerebral small vessel disease can be insidious. It has various symptoms, some of which can attack acutely. Acute cerebral small vessel disease is characterized by lacunar stroke and brain parenchymal hemorrhage. The latter mainly includes hypertensive hemorrhage and cerebral amyloid angiopathy. This article summarizes the research advances of acute cerebral small vessel disease from the aspects of pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, neuroimaging features, and treatment methods, discussing characteristics and clinical challenges.
Substantial progresses have been made in cerebral vascular diseases in 2017. By retrospectively analyzing the clinical researches which Chinese experts participated in or were in charge of, this article briefly summarizes the update of stroke epidemiology, explorations of stroke-related risk factors, early management of acute stroke, secondary prevention and prognosis of stroke. These researches include the problems about the dose of thrombolysis medicine, new type of antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs, prognosis of intracranial hemorrhage and signs of intracranial hematoma enlargement, which have close connection with clinical work and are valuable in practice.