Endovascular management of ruptured distal posterior inferior cerebellar artery aneurysms: A retrospective cohort study

Distal posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) aneurysm is a kind of rare intracranial aneurysm with controversial evidence in managements. The main purposes of this research are to study the safety and effectiveness of parent artery occlusion (PAO) compared with selective aneurysm coiling (SAC) as well as figure out factors that affect the outcomes. All characteristics of patients that diagnosed with ruptured distal PICA aneurysm and treated with endovascular management in our hospital from July 2009 to February 2016 were retrospectively collected. Details include complete occlusion rate, procedure-related complications and Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) of 31 months (mean) follow-up. Total 36 patients finally met the criterions and were included in the present study. New imaging infarction was observed in 12 (33.33%) patients. And 10 of them showed no apparent neurological dysfunctions after 34 months (mean) follow-up; 1 remained coma status since the symptom onset; and 1 patient died. 27 (75%) patients got a mRS ≤ 2 at the discharge while 20 (86.96%) patients with 3-year follow-up after the operation. There is no significant difference between patients treated with SAC and PAO in both complications and functional recovery in 3-years follow-up period. Hunt&Hess classification (H&H), age, and hydrocephalus are risk factors for functional recovery at discharge. PAO is safe and efficient in the management of distal PICA aneurysms while complications and outcomes are similar with SAC. H&H, age, and hydrocephalus are predicting factors for the mRS at discharge. Further prospective study is still needed to confirm the results of present study.