Description

A 30-year-old healthy man presented with a 2-week history of a painful lump over the left temple. The lump expanded when the patient coughed or exercised in the gym. Symptoms developed after the patient sustained a blunt trauma (direct blow with a glass bottle) to the left temporal region.

On examination, a 1 cm hemispherical and tender bleb was found over the left temple (figure 1). The lump was pulsatile and disappeared on the compression of the ipsilateral superficial temporal artery (STA). The remainder of the abdominal and cardiovascular examination was normal. A hand-held Doppler confirmed the presence of blood flow within the lump. Subsequently, a Duplex ultrasound scan was arranged and confirmed the diagnosis of the STA true aneurysm with a 3.9 mm anterior–posterior diameter (figures 2 and 3).

STA aneurysms (true and false), in more than two-thirds …