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Objectives: Ruptured anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysms occur more frequently in men. The purpose of the study was to investigate sex difference in aneurysm morphologies and clinical outcomes in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysms., Setting: A tertiary referral hospital., Participants: A total of 574 consecutive patients with ACoA aneurysms were admitted to our hospital from December 2007 to February 2015. In all, 474 patients (257 men and 217 women) with ruptured ACoA aneurysms were included in the study., Main Outcome Measures: Aneurysm morphologies were measured using computed tomographic angiography and clinical outcomes were measured with Glasgow coma score at discharge., Results: The aneurysm sizes (p=0.001), aneurysm heights (p=0.011), size ratios (p<0.001), flow angles (p=0.047) and vessel angles (p=0.046) were larger in the male patients than in the females. The female patients more often had larger vessel sizes (p=0.002). Multivariate logistic analysis revealed that significant differences in aneurysm morphologies between men and women were aneurysm size (OR 1.1, 95% CI 1.0 to 1.3; p=0.036), aneurysm height (OR 0.8, 95% CI 0. to 0.9; p=0.006) and size ratio (OR 1.4, 95% CI 0.5 to 1.7; p=0.001). There were no statistically significant differences in the outcomes between men and women (OR 1.0, 95% CI 0.6 to 1.7, p=0.857)., Conclusions: The men were independently associated with larger aneurysm sizes, greater aneurysm heights and larger size ratios. Sex was not a risk factor for poor outcome in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysms., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/)

Objectives: Predicting the risk of rupture of small intracranial aneurysms remains challenging. The irregular pulsation of aneurysms detected by four-dimensional CT angiography (4D-CTA) could be an imaging marker of aneurysm vulnerability. We aimed to investigate the association of irregular pulsation with small aneurysm rupture. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study on intracranial aneurysms detected by 4D-CTA from October 2017 to January 2020. A total of 242 consecutive patients with 316 aneurysms were enrolled. Irregular pulsation was defined as a temporary focal protuberance on more than 3 consecutive frames of the 20 phases in the RR interval. Small aneurysms were defined as those <7 mm. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine the independent predictors of small aneurysm rupture. Results: A total of 169 patients with 217 small intracranial aneurysms were included. Fourteen (6.5%) of the aneurysms had ruptured, and 77 (35.5%) had irregular pulsation. There were no significant differences in age, sex, hypertension, smoking, diabetes, drinking, or hyperlipidemia between the ruptured and unruptured aneurysm groups. The univariate analysis showed that smaller vessel size (p = 0.008), larger size ratio (p = 0.003), larger aspect ratio (p = 0.006), larger flow angle (p = 0.001), large vessel angle (p = 0.004), middle cerebral artery aneurysms (p = 0.046), anterior cerebral artery/posterior communicating artery/posterior circulation aneurysm (p = 0.006), irregular aneurysm (p = 0.001), and t presence of irregular pulsation (p = 0.001) were associated with small aneurysm rupture. The multivariate analysis showed that the presence of irregular pulsation (p = 0.003), anterior cerebral artery/posterior communicating artery/posterior circulation aneurysms (p = 0.014), and larger flow angle (p = 0.006) was independently associated with aneurysm rupture. Multivariate analysis of predictors of the irregular pulsation of small aneurysms showed that the aneurysm rupture (p = 0.022), irregular aneurysm (p < 0.001), and large size ratio (p = 0.005) were independently associated with the presence of irregular pulsation. Conclusions: The ruptured small aneurysms more often had irregular pulsation. The irregular pulsation was independently associated with aneurysm rupture and may help evaluate the risk of rupture of small intracranial aneurysms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a devastating disease. Anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm is the most frequent location of intracranial aneurysms. The purpose of this study is to predict the clinical outcome at discharge after rupture of ACoA aneurysms using the random forest machine learning technique. Methods: A total of 607 patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysms were included in this study between December 2007 and January 2016. In addition to basic clinical variables, 12 aneurysm morphologic parameters were evaluated. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the independent predictors of poor outcome. Of the 607 patients, 485 patients were randomly selected for training and the remaining for internal testing. The random forest model was developed using the training data set. An additional 202 patients from February 2016 to December 2017 were collected for externally validating the model. The prediction performance of the random forest model was compared with two radiologists. Results: Patients' age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.04), ventilated breathing status (OR = 4.23), World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) grade (OR = 2.13), and Fisher grade (OR = 1.50) are significantly associated with poor outcome. None of the investigated morphological parameters of ACoA aneurysm is an independent predictor of poor outcome. The developed random forest model achieves sensitivities of 78.3% for internal test and 73.8% for external test. The areas under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the random forest model were 0.90 for the internal test and 0.84 for the external test. Both sensitivities and areas under ROC curves of our model are superior to those of two raters in both internal and external tests. Conclusions: The random forest model presents good performance in predicting the outcome after rupture of ACoA aneurysms, which may aid in clinical decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with poor-grade aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) are considered to have a poor prognosis. However, the underlying reason for the association between the aneurysmal characteristics and poor-grade aSAH is still unclear. In the present study, we retrospectively evaluated the independent risk factors for patients with anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysms with poor-grade aSAH. From January 2009 to January 2016, 477 consecutive patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysms were included in the present study. Poor-grade aSAH was defined as a World Federation of Neurosurgical Society grade of IV or V, and good-grade aSAH was defined as a grade of I–III. Univariate and multivariable regression analyses were used to investigate the differences in aneurysm morphology and clinical characteristics between the 2 groups. On univariate analysis, older patients (P = 0.038), larger aneurysm size (P = 0.013), larger size ratio (P = 0.007), larger aspect ratio (P = 0.009), positive history of stroke (P = 0.001), and posterior projection aneurysms (P = 0.001) were associated with poor-grade aSAH. Multivariate analyses revealed that older patients (odds ratio [OR], 1.654; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.004–2.728; P = 0.048), larger size ratio (OR, 1.280; 95% CI, 1.111–1.475; P = 0.001), positive history of stroke (OR, 6.051; 95% CI, 1.712–21.381; P = 0.005), and posterior projection aneurysms (OR, 2.718; 95% CI, 1.607–4.598; P < 0.001) were independently associated with poor-grade aSAH. Poor-grade aSAH was independently associated with older patients, a larger size ratio, a positive history of stroke, and posterior projection aneurysms in patients with a ruptured ACoA aneurysm. These parameters could contribute to screening for patients with the potential for poor-grade aSAH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]