Early Complications and Outcome After Treatment of Ruptured Aneurysms in Patients with Subarachnoid Hemorrhage-A Post Hoc Analysis of the EARLYDRAIN Trial.

Objective: Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) from a ruptured intracranial aneurysm is a severe, life-threatening condition, with high morbidity and mortality. The current treatment often involves surgical clipping or endovascular treatment within the first 24-48 hours. Although there is ample evidence of complications in treating unruptured aneurysms, similar data in patients with acutely ruptured aneurysms are limited. The recently completed EARLYDRAIN trial showed improved neurologic results from lumbar drainage after aneurysm treatment in patients with aSAH. Using this data set, we aim to study the frequency and effects of complications and identify associated risk factors.

Methods: A substudy was carried out of the prospective multicenter randomized controlled EARLYDRAIN trial. We analyzed treatment-associated complications (bleeding and/or infarctions) detected on computed tomography on day 1 after aneurysm occlusion. Outcomes were the occurrence of postprocedural complications, secondary infarctions in the acute phase, and the modified Rankin Scale score after 6 months.

Results: The EARLYDRAIN trial recruited 287 patients in 19 centers. Of these patients, 56 (19.5%) experienced a treatment complication. Twenty-five patients (8.7%) experienced postprocedural intracranial hemorrhage and 34 patients (11.8%) experienced a treatment-associated infarction. Patients with a complication showed more secondary infarctions (P = 0.049) and worse neurologic outcomes after 180 days (P = 0.025) compared with patients with no complication. Aneurysm location, rebleeding before the treatment, number of patients recruited per center, and the day of the treatment were independent risk factors for the occurrence of complications.

Conclusions: The present study shows that patients with aSAH frequently experience intervention-associated complications associated with aneurysm occlusion required to prevent recurrent hemorrhage. Consequently, patients with aSAH with treatment-related complications more often experience a worse clinical course and poor outcome.