Patch angioplasty to repair the arteriotomy defect in the wall of the middle cerebral artery after failure of superficial temporal artery-middle cerebral artery anastomosis in moyamoya disease--case report.

A 65-year-old woman presented with moyamoya disease associated with a saccular aneurysm of the posterior cerebral artery. The surgical plan required superficial temporal artery (STA)-middle cerebral artery (MCA) anastomosis to be conducted before neck clipping of the aneurysm to provide collateral flow via the STA to prevent ischemia if temporary occlusion of the parent artery of the aneurysm was needed. However, the anastomotic procedure failed because the STA was occluded at the site of temporary clip application. End-to-end anastomosis of the STA was planned after excising the occluded site of the STA, but end-to-end anastomosis could not be performed because the donor artery was too short for anastomosis to the branch of the MCA. Therefore, patch grafting using a piece of wall of the STA was performed to repair the arteriotomy defect in the wall of the MCA, followed by neck clipping of the saccular aneurysm in the posterior circulation via the subtemporal approach. Vascular reconstruction can be recommended if arterial anastomosis between a superficial skin artery and a branch of the MCA is impossible due to an intraoperative accident or technical difficulty and reperfusion is necessary.