Rapid ventricular pacing for flow arrest during cerebrovascular surgery: revival of an old concept.

Background: Intraoperative rupture of a cerebral aneurysm can be a devastating event that increases operative morbidity and mortality. Rapid ventricular pacing (RVP) is a technique used in interventional cardiology to obtain flow arrest for short periods of time.

Objective: To present our experience using RVP for flow arrest during cerebrovascular surgery.