[Application and reliability of balloon occlusion test in treatment of cerebrovascular diseases].

Objective: To study the reliability of applying balloon occlusion test (BOT) to evaluate the compensation capacity of cerebral collateral circulation, and investigate the validity of different criterion about BOT and techniques to improve the security of BOT.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the results of 86 patients, 39 males and 47 females, aged 49.8 (13 - 72), 67 suffering from intracranial aneurysm and 19 from traumatic carotid cavernous fistula, who received BOT, and on the results of 38 of the 66 patients who accepted artery occlusion after the BOT.

Results: The positive rate of diagnosis was 10.47% and the negative rate was 89.53% by conventional BOT; whereas the positive rate of diagnosis was 36.05% and the negative rate was 63.95% with combined cross circulation and conventional test. The brain ischemia rate after cerebral artery occlusion therapy was 8.33%. The BOT-related complication rate was 3.49%.

Conclusion: (1) The current BOT technique can basically provide reliable results. (2) The cross circulation test and hypotensive provocative test can effectively improve the specificity of BOT. (3) More perfect BOT criterion for the prediction of cerebral tolerance is still to be worked out. Combination of the conventional method and advanced imaging technique and search for an objective and quantificational criterion would be of reward.