Ruptured intracranial aneurysms in infancy. Diagnostic difficulties and overall reflections associated with the surgical treatment and the treatment of vasospasm

The most common cause of subarachnoid hemorrhage in the childhood populatio n is arteriovenous malformation (AVM) while intracranial aneurysm is rare. Me Donald and Corb [2] reported back in 1939 a frequency of 2,5% of aneurys ms in patients under the age of fifteen in a series of 1125 verified aneury sms while Laitinen [1] in 1964 reported a frequency of 3% in patients under fifteen in a series total of 1175 patients with subarachnoid bleeding. How ever, only 1,3% of these young patients had a demonstrable saccular aneurys m. Even in more recent reports of larger series it was found that pediatric an eurysms account for only 0.5-4.5% and that they are exceedingly rare in inf ants [3, 4]. Our case, was a premature child born in the 34th week of gestation, who acc ording to the literature was the youngest ever to have been operated upon. The diagnostic and surgical difficulties are illustrated.