Endovascular treatment of ruptured distal posterior inferior cerebellar artery aneurysms: report of 11 cases.

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics and endovascular treatment of ruptured distal posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) aneurysms.

Methods: 11 consecutive patients (7 women, 4 men, mean age of 49.2 years) with ruptured distal PICA aneurysms were studied retrospectively. All had onset of acute intraventricular or cerebellar haemorrhage, and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Hunt-Hess (HH) grades were H-H I in 1 patient, H-H II in 5 patients, H-H 111 in 4 patients and H-H IV in 1 patient on admission.

Results: All patients were treated by endovascular treatment, seven cases got endosaccular coiling and four cases got parent artery occlusion at the same time. All the patients were followed up one to four years. Recurrences occurred in 1 patient two years post-treatment, and were successfully retreated by endosaccular coiling and parent artery occlusion. The occluded PICA was recanalized one year post-treatment but without any growth of the aneurysm in one case. One year post-treatment, 2 patients had a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 0, 8 patients had a mRS score of 1 and 1 patient had a mRS score of 2.

Conclusions: Coiling of ruptured distal PICA aneury, with or without parent vessel occlusion, was feasible, relatively safe and effective in preventing early/medium-term rebleeding. A strict angiographic follow-up, however, was necessary to detect recurrence.