Multifactorial Assessment of Complication Risks in Embolization for Ruptured Cerebral Aneurysm.

OBJECTIVE

Complications in neuroendovascular therapy for cerebral aneurysm (AN) affect the clinical course of patients. Patient conditions, operating procedures, and operator expertise were highlighted as risk factors for complications. These risk factors often combine and constitute particularly strong risks, resulting in a worsened clinical course. In this study, we performed a multifactorial assessment of complication risks in neuroendovascular therapy.

METHODS

We analyzed patient data from the Japanese Registry of NeuroEndovascular Therapy 3, which is a nationwide retrospective cohort study of neuroendovascular procedures conducted between 2010 and 2014. Patients who underwent coil embolization for a ruptured anterior communicating artery (Acom) AN, an internal carotid artery-posterior communicating artery (IC-PC) AN, or basilar artery bifurcation (BA-bif) AN were included in this analysis. Information on 16 explanatory variables and 1 objective variable for each patient was obtained from the dataset as nominal variables. The explanatory variables consisted of patient factors, procedural factors, and an operator factor. The objective variable was whether the following complications occurred: intraprocedural bleeding, postprocedural bleeding, and procedure-related infarction. The specific situations involving multiple risk factors associated with high complication rates were identified using a programmed method. The impact of the absence of a supervising physician was also assessed.

RESULTS

A total of 2971 patients were analyzed. The complication rates for patients with Acom ANs, IC-PC ANs, and BA-bif ANs were 12.9%, 10.2%, and 13.7%, respectively. A total of 15 specific situations were identified as follows: 3 related to an Acom AN, with complication rates ranging from 19.3% to 20.3%; 4 related to an IC-PC AN, with complication rates ranging from 15.6% to 17.9%; and 8 related to a BA-bif AN, with complication rates ranging from 20.6% to 33.3%. In 4 of these situations, the absence of a supervising physician significantly impacted complication rates. For instance, the complication rate for patients with IC-PC AN treated under local anesthesia was 16.0% overall, but it was 23.8% without supervising physicians.

CONCLUSION

Multifactorial assessment based on patient, procedural, and operator factors provides more reliable risk estimations and will help improve the clinical course.