- Larger arteries and cranial nerves travel in cisterns and so the locations of cerebral aneurysms and cranial nerve tumours involve cisterns.
- Arachnoid cysts can form if fluid dynamics are abnormal in a cistern.
- Cisterns are important landmarks in surgical anatomy of the brain.
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage usually involves cisterns more than convexity sulci because cerebral arterial aneurysms usually arise within cisterns
- Cisterns can contain pus in cases of meningitis whether bacterial, tuberculous, or other inflammatory conditions such as sarcoid.
- They can fill with tumour in meningeal carcinomatosis and in some meningioma cases
- Air in cisterns due to spontaneous or traumatic or postsurgical CSF leak
Transaxial CT unenhanced brain window showing marked hypodensities classic for pneumocephalus (air in the head) in cisterns including quadrigeminal, ambient, superior cerebellar, and Sylvian as well frontal subarachnoid space. Trauma is suggested by swelling in the left posterior temporal scalp.
Transaxial CT unenhanced brain window showing hyperdensities in all visualized cisterns (Sylvian, ambient, and interpeduncular) as well as enlargement of the temporal horns of the lateral ventricles. This picture is classic for acute subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) due to cerebral aneurysm rupture.