Paediatric intracranial aneurysms: results of a surgical series and literature review of Guglielmi detachable coil embolization

It is known that the profile of aneursyms in the paediatric age group demon strates a different biology and epidemiology than those in the adult popula tion in terms of size, sex, location. multiplicity and complications such a s vasospasm and rebleeding. As a consequence of their different behaviour, timing of surgery does not appear to be such a critical issue in their mana gement decision. Surgical clipping is still the treatment of choice, howeve r, with our growing experience of endovascular techniques, these might prov e to be a suitable alternative in the future. We report the results of our surgical series of 17 paediatric and adolescent patients harbouring 18 arte rial intracranial aneurysms (age range 7-18 years). Systemic diseases tradi tionally known to be associated with this entity were excluded. In order to assess endovascular techniques as a potential treatment alternative for th is group of patients, we reviewed the current literature, dealing with Gugl ielmi detachable coil (GDC) embolization of arterial cerebral aneurysms in this age group. No current series deals purely with paediatric aneurysms; w e have reviewed paediatric cases reported as part of large adult series.