Introduction Hydatid disease has been known since the time of Hippo- crates, and it is still a major health problem in some areas of the world. Although hydatidosis is not a major health problem in most Western countries, it is relatively com- mon in some countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the Mediterranean countries, the Middle East and South Amer- ica [4, 13, 15, 23]. It is commonly caused by Echinococ- cus granulosus. The incidence of hydatid disease is 1:2000 in Turkey [8]. It commonly involves the liver and lungs. Embolic stroke due to rupture of a hydatid cyst in cardiac cavity, a cause of ischemic infarction and multiple meta- static cyst formation, is an extremely rare entity [4, 9, 22]. It results from traumatic, spontaneous or surgical rupture of a fertile cyst located elsewhere and embolization. On reviewing the world literature, we were able to find reports of only 68 cases of multiple metastatic hydatid cysts of the brain up to now [1, 2, 4–7, 11, 13, 15, 17–24]. Out of 68 cases of multiple metastatic hydatid cysts in the literature, only 6 (9%) were due to embolization from the rupture of a fertile intracardiac hydatid cyst. In this paper, the find- ings in these 6 previously published cases of occlusive dis- ease attributable to hydatidosis were evaluated retrospec- tively. Patients and methods A 30-year retrospective review of world literature revealed six pa- tients with hydatidosis causing cerebrovascular occlusive disease. In all these patients the cerebrovascular condition was caused by rup- ture of an intracardiac hydatid cyst. Their ages ranged from 7 to 37 years. In the present study, clinical, neuroimaging and surgical find- ings were presented. Results There were three male and three female patients. Five of the six patients were clustered in age between the first and third decades. The condition was caused by spontaneous rupture of a primary intracardiac hydatid cyst in four pa- tients, and by traumatic and surgical rupture of a primary Child’s Nerv Syst (1998) 14:697–699 © Springer-Verlag 1998 BRIEF COMMUNICATION Cerebrovascular occlusive disease: hydatidosis Mehmet Turgut Kemal Bayülkem of embolic stroke in children, espe- cially in the infested areas where hy- datidosis is endemic. Key words Heart · Hydatid disease · Stroke Received: 25 June 1998 Presented in part at the Joint 3rd World Stroke Congress and 5th European Stroke Conference, Munich, 1–5 September 1996 M. Turgut () 1 Department of Neurosurgery, Adnan Menderes University School of Medicine, TR-09100 Aydın, Turkey K. Bayülkem Department of Neurology, Adnan Menderes University School of Medicine, TR-09100 Aydın, Turkey Mailing address: 1 Cumhuriyet Mahallesi, Cumhuriyet Caddesi, 2. Sokak, Darcan Apartmanı No: 1/6, TR-09020 Aydın, Turkey Fax: +90-256-21 20 146 Abstract We reviewed six patients with cerebral hydatid embolism from the heart. Although hydatid disease is becoming less common in the world as a whole, it should be con- sidered in the differential diagnosis