Effects of the Cerebral Aneurysm Treatment Method on Coil Packing Density and Its Relationship with the Ostium Area

To test the following hypotheses: (a) balloon or stent assistance increases coil packing density (CPD) in the endovascular treatment of intracranial aneurysms, and (b) CPD correlates to ostium area (OA) and aneurysm volume (AV).

This retrospective study included 60 aneurysms (54 ruptured and 6 unruptured) treated with simple coiling (SC) (n = 18), balloon-assisted coiling (BAC) (n = 7), or stent-assisted coiling (SAC) (n = 35) at the authors' institution between August 2017 and December 2019. AV and OA measurements were obtained from 3-dimensional digital subtraction angiography images using commercial software. Coil sizes were retrieved from patient files, and coil volume (CV) measurements were obtained from https://www.angiocalc.com/. Analysis of covariance, multivariate covariance analysis, and Pearson correlation analyses were performed.

The median value for AV, CV, CPD, and OA was 63.4 mm³ (range, 5.5-1,771.4 mm³), 23.13 mm³ (range, 2.03-296.95 mm³), 33.29% (range, 13.41%-81.02%), and 10.7 mm² (range, 2.7-49.9 mm²), respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that the CPD values were not significantly different among the treatment groups, although OA significantly differed between the SC and SAC groups (P < .05). Pearson correlations showed that similar to AV, OA was negatively correlated with CPD (r = -0.321, P < .05).

The CPD value in cerebral aneurysms treated with BAC or SAC did not differ from that in aneurysms treated with SC.