Background: Open surgery is a frequent option given to patients with unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIAs) unsuitable for endovascular repair. Since the risk of rupture of UIAs is generally low, we determined whether the risks and costs of surgery in this patient subset are warranted.
Methods: The safety, efficacy, and costs of minimally invasive surgery by minicraniotomy were evaluated in 102 consecutive patients with anterior circulation UIAs deemed unsuitable for endovascular repair by an interdisciplinary conference of surgeons and neurointerventionalists. Data from 107 UIA patients treated by endovascular means in the same period were used as the standard.
Results: Surgical patients comprised a different subset of aneurysms, with more MCA and fewer paraophthalmic aneurysms (54 vs. 6, p < 0.0001 and 4 vs. 60, p < 0.0001, for minicraniotomy and endovascular, respectively). However, surgery incurred shorter anesthesia time (197.7 vs. 149.3 min, p < 0.0001), higher rates of complete aneurysm obliteration (94.57 vs. 66.67 %, p < 0.0001), and lower overall hospital costs ($8,287 CAD vs. $17,732 CAD, p < 0.0001) than the endovascular cohort. There were no treatment-related surgical deaths, but one patient had an mRS of 3 after 6 months due to temporal lobe epilepsy and memory problems. This compared favorably with the endovascular cohort in which two patients died due to treatment (mRS = 6) and one suffered a severe stroke (mRS = 5 at 6 months).
Conclusions: For patients counseled to undergo treatment but have UIAs unsuitable for endovascular repair, surgery is safe, effective, and cost-efficient.
Keywords: Costs; Endovascular treatment; Minicraniotomy and clipping; Outcome; Unruptured aneurysm.