Practicability of intraoperative microvascular Doppler sonography in aneurysm surgery

Inadvertent narrowing of parent or branching vessels is one major cause of unfavorable outcome from aneurysm surgery. Intraoperative micro-Doppler sonography of arterial brain vessels during surgery for cerebral aneurysms of the anterior circulation was performed in 50 patients and compared retrospectively with 50 patients, who were operated upon without micro-Doppler sonography. Intraoperative micro-Doppler sonography demonstrated the need for repositioning of the clip in 12 instances. Outcome after surgery with micro-Doppler sonography appeared slightly better than without. Micro-Doppler sonography is concluded to be a practicable adjunct to routine aneurysm surgery.