Zvara Jessica, Hafen Ryan D, Angelotti Timothy
From the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
A A Pract. 2018 Jul 1;11(1):11-13. doi: 10.1213/XAA.0000000000000720.
Patients who present with a subarachnoid hemorrhage may have more than 1 intracranial aneurysm at risk, which may not be appreciated until a subsequent aneurysmal bleeding event occurs. We describe a patient who underwent successful aneurysmal clipping, but later presented urgently with large-volume epistaxis 48 hours after the procedure. After successful intubation of the patient, subsequent angiographic imaging determined that the massive intranasal/oral hemorrhage was due to bleeding through the former operative site, from rupture of a previously unrecognized aneurysm. This series of events demonstrates the importance of selecting the most at-risk aneurysm for surgical intervention.