The benefit of a temporary vessel occlusion in aneurysm surgery

Temporary clipping in aneurysm surgery has been used more frequently in last years to increase the efficacy and safety of the neck dissection and obliteration. Experimental studies have shown that neuroprotection using hypertension and mannitol administration diminishes the risk of ischemia during this procedure. However, recent studies show that this method has to be used with caution.

In 85 aneurysms we used temporary vessel occlusion with neuroprotection described above in 17 patients (20%), ranging from 2 to 35 minutes (mean 9 minutes). The indication was peroperative rupture (3 cases), difficult neck dissection (13 cases) and a giant aneurysm (1 case).

Forteen of these patients had a good result, one was severely disabled, the other 2 died. One of them had a large temporal hematoma and was HH=V before the operation, the other one had a premature peroperative aneurysm rupture. Shorter occlusion times were used in patients with a good outcome, in patients with elective use of the clip and in patients with no new ischemia on the postoperative CT scan (t-test, p<0.05). The postoperative infarction rate was similar in the group of patients with (17%) and without temporary clipping (15%).

We conclude that temporary clipping in aneurysm surgery is a relatively safe procedure which facilitates the aneurysm neck dissection and enables neck obliteration in difficult cases. Better results are achieved with short duration of occlusion. (Fig. 4, Ref. 13.).