The range of intracranial cerebral infection can vary from cerebritis to abscess, other manifestations of intracranial infection can also be visualized, such as extra-axial empyema, meningitis, and ventriculitis. Hemorrhage is rare in brain abscess, but has been reported. All these pathology will lead to peripheral cerebral edema or mass effect.
In CT images, early cerebritis will be a patchy enhanced lesion. If the lesion becomes an abscess, it would appear as a rim-enhancing lesion with central hypodense fluid or pus, sometimes air density