Ruptured intracranial aneurysms in the first two decades of life

Abstract

✓ An analysis of 3000 ruptured intracranial aneurysms revealed 58 cases in patients under the age of 19 years. There was a striking incidence of aneurysms of the carotid termination and anterior cerebral complex, accounting for 43 of 58 cases, and of these 20 involved the terminal portion of the carotid artery. Vasospasm occurred slightly less often than in adults and infarction was only seen in one postmortem examination. The surgical mortality in alert patients was 7% whereas in a comparable bedrest group it was 38%. This good tolerance to surgery was evident whether intracranial operation or carotid ligation was used, but the surgical method was not randomly allocated.