This is a section from the cerebellum of an elderly woman found dead at home. She had a long history of tobacco use and DM II with ASCVD, peripheral vascular disease, and stroke. A lot of her organs had a bit of dystrophic calcification. Her brain had a bunch of vessels with medial calcification. This is not that uncommon, but I liked the pictures:
Medial calcification is associated with increased all cause mortality(1), but I’m not convinced that it’s just along for the ride in otherwise sick people. It’s more common in intracerebral vessels than in other organs.
Vlachopoulos C, Aznaouridis K, Stefanadis C. Prediction of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality with arterial stiffness: a systematic
review and meta-analysis. J Am Coll Cardiol. (2010) 55:1318–27. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2009.10.061