Rapid Ventricular Pacing for Clipping of Intracranial Aneurysms: A Single-centre Retrospective Case Series

Multiple strategies exist to facilitate microdissection and obliteration of intracranial aneurysms during microsurgical clipping. Rapid ventricular pacing (RVP) can be used to induce controlled transient hypotension to facilitate aneurysm manipulation. We report the indications and outcomes of intraoperative RVP for clipping of ruptured and unruptured complex aneurysms.

We completed a retrospective review of adult patients who underwent RVP-facilitated elective and emergent microsurgical aneurysm clipping by a single senior neurosurgeon between 2016 and 2023. Intraoperative RVP was performed at a rate of 150 to 200 beats per minute through a transvenous pacing wire and repeated as needed based on surgical requirements. Intraoperative procedural and pacing data and perioperative cardiac and neurosurgical variables were collected.

Forty patients were included in this study. The median (interquartile range) number of pacing episodes per patient was 8 (5 to 14), resulting in a median mean arterial pressure of 37 (30 to 40) mm Hg during RVP. One patient developed wide complex tachycardia intraoperatively, which resolved after cardioversion. Fifteen out of 36 (42%) patients who had postoperative troponin measurements had at least one troponin value above the 99th percentile upper reference limit. One patient had markedly elevated troponin with anterolateral ischemia in the context of massive postoperative intracranial hemorrhage. There were no other documented intraoperative or postoperative cardiac events.

This retrospective case series suggests that RVP could be an effective adjunct for clipping of complex ruptured and unruptured aneurysms, associated with transient troponin rise but rare postoperative cardiac complications.