Not All Embolizations Are Created Equally in the Management of Posterior Epistaxis: Discussion of Safety Measures Avoiding Neurological Complications

Today, there are still no uniform guidelines for the treatment of epistaxis. Furthermore, it is widely debated whether embolization or surgical approaches should be the first choice of treatment for intractable posterior epistaxis after conservative measures have failed. In several meta-analyses, it is reported that endoscopic sphenopalatine artery ligation and embolization have similar success rates, but embolization was associated with more severe neurological complications. Regarding existing literature, there are many comparative analyses of surgical methods but none for embolization protocols. Against this backdrop of a lack of uniform standards in embolization techniques, we present a retrospective evaluation of what has emerged to be best procedural practice for endovascular treatment of epistaxis in our department using microsphere particles and microcoils, in particular regarding precaution measures to avoid neurological complications. In our retrospective data analysis of 141 procedures in 123 patients, performed between 2008 and 2019, we find success rates very similar to those reported in other studies (95.1% immediate-stop-of-bleeding success and 90.2% overall embolization success) but did not encounter any major neurological complication opposed to other reports. We suggest some aspects of our protocol as precaution measure to avoid neurological complications. More generally and perhaps even more importantly, we make a strong case for standardization for embolization techniques to the level of details in surgical procedure standardization to enable an apples to apples comparison of embolization techniques to each other and of intervention vs. surgery.