Endovascular therapy for ruptured vertebral artery dissecting aneurysms: Results from nationwide, retrospective, multi-center registries in Japan (JR-NET3)

Ruptured vertebral artery dissecting aneurysm (VADA) causes subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), and parent artery occlusion (PAO) with endovascular technique (EVT) has been the first-line treatment for ruptured VADA. In this study, we have extracted 530 ruptured VADA, treated through PAO with EVT, from a nationwide, retrospective, multi-center registration in Japan (JR-NET3), and analyzed factors associated with outcome at 30 days and procedure-related complications. Complete occlusion was achieved in 497 cases (93.8%) and favorable outcome was obtained in 303 cases (59.1%). Older age (≥60 years), male sex, use of general anesthesia, non-specialist as the responsible doctor, and time delay from onset to treatment (≥24 h) were negative factors for favorable outcome in multivariate analysis, although these factors were not associated with procedure-related complications. Compared with previous studies (JR-NET1 and 2), the number of endovascular treatments for patients with VADA and severe SAH increased in this decade; however, the percentage of patients with favorable outcome did not decrease. This might be due to not only the improvement of endovascular treatment itself, but also increased access to endovascular specialists or standardization of management.