Survival, Dependency, and Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Ruptured Intracranial Aneurysm

A recent article lead by Dr Xinyang Hua and colleagues from the University of Oxford has been published in Neurosurgery. Based on a large multicentre randomized controlled trial (the ISAT), the study investigated the trends of survival, dependency, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) over 10 years in patients with ruptured intracranial aneurysms who were treated with either endovascular coiling or neurosurgery clipping.

The authors find that the survival and independence status as well as overall HRQoL was better in the endovascular coiling group throughout the period of follow-up. Patients in the endovascular coiling group were estimated to have improvement in life years and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in both short and long term, with a third of the 10-year QALYs difference coming from differences in HRQoL alone. The study also provides insight into thelong-term outcomes for subarachnoid hemorrhage survivors- the authors report that in both treatment groups, dependency and quality of life do not reach a steady state until 4 years post-treatment.