Determination of the Aneurysm Vulnerability Index by Stimulation and Medical Imaging

Stroke is the leading cause of disability in France with 130,000 cases per year, 20% of strokes being hemorrhagic, with a majority of intracranial aneurysm rupture (80%). Each year, 6000 meningeal hemorrhages (MHA) caused by cerebral aneurysm rupture are reported in France: 40% of patients die within the first month and 30% are left with severe and permanent disability. Intracranial aneurysms are present in 2 to 6% of the population and only about 0.5% of them will rupture. Given the human and economic costs associated with this disease, systematic medical screening for intracranial aneurysms could be useful. However, the operative risk of endovascular treatment remains non-zero (around 1%) and could be proposed only to a selected population of aneurysms at risk of rupture. The absence of diagnostic criteria for aneurysmal vulnerability does not allow for the moment to consider screening for this disease, which continues to strike without warning a young and active population.

Nevertheless, access to brain imaging allows the detection of an increasing number of intracranial aneurysms. The question of preventive treatment then arises and is still a difficult point discussed by neurosurgeons / neurointerventionists based on general epidemiological data difficult to apply to an individual.