Designing a flow-controlled STA-MCA anastomosis based on the Hagen–Poiseuille law for preventing postoperative hyperperfusion in adult moyamoya disease

BACKGROUND: Technical improvements for preventing postoperative symptomatic cerebral hyperperfusion (CHP) during superficial temporal artery-middle cerebral artery (STA-MCA) anastomosis for moyamoya disease (MMD) were seldom reported. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the significance of application of a novel flow-controlled concept which voluntarily reduces the hemodynamic difference between the donor and recipient arteries based on the Hagen–Poiseuille law when performing direct anastomoses of recipient parasylvian cortical arteries (PSCAs) with anterograde hemodynamic sources from the MCA (M-PSCAs) in adult MMD. DESIGN: This was a retrospective observational study. METHODS: Direct anastomoses of recipient M-PSCAs were performed on 89 symptomatic hemispheres in 82 adult MMD patients in our hospital from January 2020 to June 2021. They were divided into the flow-controlled group (patients who received direct anastomosis under designed flow-controlled principles) and non-flow-controlled group (patients who received conventional direct anastomosis to obtain maximum flow). The patients’ basic characteristics and incidence of postoperative CHP were compared between the two groups. Risk factors for occurrence of postoperative CHP were analyzed. RESULTS: Overall, 36 hemispheres were included in the non-flow-controlled group and 53 in flow-controlled group. The incidences of postoperative focal (22.6%) and symptomatic CHP (5.7%) in the flow-controlled group were significantly lower than those (focal, 52.8%; symptomatic, 25.0%) in the non-flow-controlled group (p = 0.003 and 0.009, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that the flow-controlled concept was significantly associated with the development of focal (p = 0.005) and symptomatic (p = 0.012) CHP. CONCLUSION: The flow-controlled STA-MCA anastomosis can significantly decrease the incidence of postoperative CHP during direct anastomoses of recipient M-PSCAs in adult MMD.