Internal carotid aneurysms presenting with mass effect symptoms of cranial nerve dysfunction: efficacy and imitations of endosaccular embolization with GDC.

Objective: The authors report a retrospective analysis of their experience in the endosaccular embolization of internal carotid aneurysms which caused mass effect symptoms of cranial nerves (CN) and review the efficacy and limitations of this technique.

Methods: Between April 1997 and August 2002, 12 internal carotid aneurysms that caused mass effect symptoms of CN were treated by endosaccular GDC embolization with parent artery preservation. The locations were the cavernous internal carotid artery (CV) in six patients, carotid-ophthalmic artery (CO) in two patients, and posterior communicating artery (PCo) in four patients.