Impact of early surgery of ruptured cerebral aneurysms on vasospasm and hydrocephalus after SAH: Our preliminary results.

OBJECTIVE: Timing of surgical treatment of ruptured intracranial aneurysms has undergone a drastic change in the last few decades with preference for early surgery Our paper focuses specifically on the prognostic importance of timing of surgery, since early surgery of ruptured aneurysms provides immediately good clinical results. We present a series of cases operated in early and ultra early surgery, evaluating the technical aspects, the efficacy, the safety and the clinical results.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the clinical records and radiological imaging of patients treated for ruptured intracranial aneurysms who underwent early and ultra early clipping between January 2011 and April 2017 at our Institution. We included patients treated within the first 12 h and subsequently we divided our series in two subgroups based on the timing of surgery comparing the "early surgery" group (within 12 h) with the "ultra early surgery" group (within 6 h).

RESULTS: Seventy-six (76) patients undergoing either early or ultra-early surgery for ruptured intracranial aneurysms have been reported Either early or ultra-early surgery showed a statistically favorable impact on reducing the incidence of both postoperative vasospasm and hydrocephalus. Ultra-early surgery group had the best outcome at the statistical analyses. (good postoperative 1Y GOSE.) CONCLUSIONS: We strongly believe that patients affected by ruptured intracranial aneurysms excluding Hunt and Hess grade V patients) should be treated as soon as possible and hence it should be considered as an emergency surgery. This approach prevents immediately a second bleeding of the aneurysm, allows to treat any associated condition of intracranial hypertension including hematomas and hydrocephalus and to use safely aggressive medical therapy such as hypertension.