Multiple Aortic Aneurysms in a 7-Year-Old Negro Child

A 7-year-old Negro boy died from multiple saccular aortic aneurysms at the thoracic and abdominal level. Microscopic examination of the aortic wall revealed intimal hyperplasia of the vasa vasorum to the point that some were completely occluded. A similar intimal proliferation was observed in cerebral and in renal blood vessels. It is believed that the patient suffered from diffuse arteritis which eventually ‘burned-out’ and gave way in the aorta to aneurysms, and in the brain to areas of brain softening with an ensuing clinical picture of coma and convulsions.