One third of all brain aneurysms rupture: the size is not a significant risk factor
Approximately one third of all brain aneurysms rupture during a patient’s lifetime, resulting in a brain haemorrhage. A recent Finnish study demonstrates that, unlike what was previously assumed, the size of the aneurysm does not significantly impact the risk of rupture.
(Image credit: Miikka Korja)
The new Finnish study established that approximately one third of all aneurysms and up to one fourth of small aneurysms will rupture during a patient’s lifetime. The lifetime risk for rupture of a brain aneurysm depends heavily on the patient’s overall load of risk factors.
The risk of rupture is particularly high for female smokers with brain aneurysms of seven millimetres or more in diameter.
What surprised the researchers most was that the size of an aneurysm had little impact on its risk for rupture, particularly for men, despite a previously presumed correlation. In addition, the risk of rupture among non-smoking men was exceptionally low.
This is not to say that aneurysms in non-smoking men never rupture, but that the risk is much lower than we previously thought. This means treating every unruptured aneurysm may be unnecessary if one is discovered in a non-smoking man with low blood pressure, says Docent Seppo Juvela, University of Helsinki.
The study, published in Stroke 22nd May, is unique in that it monitored aneurysm patients over their entire lifetimes, whereas typical follow-up studies last only between one and five years in duration. The study is also exceptionally broad in scope.
It is unlikely that another similar, non-selected lifetime follow-up study on aneurysm patients will ever be conducted again, Juvela states.
Current care practices are based largely on the results of previous, shorter studies. Such studies have shown that the size of the aneurysm is the most significant factor predicting its risk for rupture. Consequently, small aneurysms have often been left untreated.
It is difficult to conduct reliable epidemiological research in brain aneurysms. The past 10–15 years have seen a distortion in the field due to a very limited group of researchers determining the direction for research. Now the situation is clearly changing, and clinically reasonable, population-based studies using non-selected data are on the rise again, states Docent Miikka Korja of the HUCS neurosurgery clinic.
(Source: uutiset.helsinki.fi)
