Diagnosis of the source of bleeding in multiple cerebral aneurysms by susceptibility-weighted imaging
Objective: to evaluate the efficiency of susceptibility-weight­ed imaging (SWI) in diagnosing the source of bleeding in multiple cerebral aneurysms. Subjects and methods. This investigation enrolled 30 patients with multiple aneurysms (MA) treated at the N. N. Burdenko Neurosurgery Research Institute in 2008 to 2011. A study group included 19 women and 11 men whose age was 28 to 62 years. Thirty patients with MA were found to have 84 aneurysms at dif­ferent sites. All the 30 patients were operated on using microsur-gical techniques. Results. SWI established the source of bleeding in 27 of the 30 patients. The technique was informative in all the cases, except 2 patients, who were studied in late periods (3 and 16 years) after hemorrhage. Bleeding in one patient with MA and suspected clin­ical subarachnoid hemorrhage was not confirmed by SWI or dur­ing surgery. According to the authors' data, the sensitivity and specificity of the technique were 93.1 and 100%, respectively. Conclusion. SWI is the method of identifying the source of bleeding in patients with MA, which enables the treatment tactic to be correctly chosen. The informative value of the technique decreases as a longer period is after hemorrhage.