Follow-up outcomes of different bypass surgical modalities for adults with ischaemic-type moyamoya disease.

Purpose: The preferred surgical method for treating adults with moyamoya disease (MMD) remains controversial. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of different surgical methods in the treatment of adults with ischaemic-type MMD.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of patients with ischaemic-type MMD who underwent indirect bypass (IB), direct bypass (DB), or combined bypass (CB) at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January 2013 to December 2019. Postoperative complications, improvements in neurological function, haemodynamics, recurrent stroke and neovascularization were compared.

Results: A total of 310 adults (371 hemispheres) with ischaemic-type MMD were included in our study. Ninety, 127, and 154 hemispheres underwent IB, DB and CB, respectively. A total of 24 (6.5%) ischaemic events and 8 (2.8%) symptomatic hyperperfusion events occurred after the operations. There was no significant difference in postoperative complications among the three types of surgery ( = 0.300). During the follow-up period, there were 21 cases (5.7%) of recurrent ischaemia and 12 cases (3.2%) of recurrent haemorrhage. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the ischaemia-free survival of the CB group was significantly longer than that of the IB group ( = 0.047), but there was no significant difference in haemorrhage-free survival among the three groups ( = 0.660). Six months after the operation, DB and CB were superior to IB in improving cerebral blood flow and neovascularization ( = 0.002), but there was no significant difference in the improvement of neurological function among the three groups at the last follow-up ( = 0.784).

Conclusion: The three surgical methods achieved satisfactory results in the treatment of ischaemic-type MMD. DB and CB can significantly improve haemodynamics and reduce recurrent stroke. In terms of improving neurological function, the curative effect of the three surgical methods remains to be further explored.