Ruptured de novo intracranial aneurysms

Summary

Objective. We describe the actual state of ruptured de novo intracranial aneurysms to contribute to a guideline of follow-up for the patients with treated intracranial aneurysm.

Methods. The authors retrospectively investigated 12 cases drawn from 483 consecutive cases of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage at our institute over a period of 22 years, in which a previously undemonstrated (hence “de novo”) intracranial saccular aneurysm formed and ruptured after successful treatment of a prior aneurysm.

Findings. The 12 cases constitute 2.5% of the 483 patients who left our hospital alive. Eleven cases were females and one was a male with a mean age of 55.7 years (range 29–75) at the first subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) and an interval between the first and the second rupture of 10.7 years (range: 2.6–23.8, standard deviation: 6.86, 95% confidence interval: 6.39–15.1). Four cases did not have risk factors such as hypertension, family history, smoking, multiple aneurysms, and moyamoya disease. None of these ruptured de novo aneurysms was at the same location as the original lesion. One-third (4 cases) of the de novo lesions in our series were found on the opposite side to each prior lesion.

Interpretation. For not only young but also elder patients with a treated aneurysm (from the fifth decade to the sixth), especially for women, late angiography or alternative modalities of less-invasive examination should be considered. To detect de novo intracranial aneurysms before rupture, the search for a de novo aneurysm should be performed within 6.39 years after a previous examination that shows an aneurysm to be nonexistent, in view of the 95% confidence interval of the mean time to de novo aneurysmal rupture (6.39–15.1 years). If applied this survey, 75% (8 cases of 12 cases) of our de novo aneurysms would be detected before rupture.