OBJECT The association between age and outcomes following aneurysm treatment with flow diverters such as the Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) have not been well established. Using the International Retrospective Study of the Pipeline Embolization Device (IntrePED) registry, the authors assessed the age-related clinical outcomes of patients undergoing aneurysm embolization with the PED. METHODS Patients with unruptured aneurysms in the IntrePED registry were divided into 4 age groups: ≤ 50, 51-60, 61-70, and > 70 years old. The rates of the following postoperative complications were compared between age groups using chi-square tests: spontaneous rupture, intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), ischemic stroke, parent artery stenosis, cranial neuropathy, neurological morbidity, neurological mortality, combined neurological morbidity and mortality, and all-cause mortality. The association between age and these complications was tested in a multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusted for sex, number of PEDs, and aneurysm size, location, and type. RESULTS Seven hundred eleven patients with 820 unruptured aneurysms were included in this study. Univariate analysis demonstrated no significant difference in ICH rates across age groups (lowest 1.0% for patients ≤ 50 years old and highest 5.0% for patients > 70 years old, p = 0.097). There was no difference in ischemic stroke rates (lowest 3.6% for patients ≤ 50 years old and highest 6.0% for patients 50-60 years old, p = 0.73). Age > 70 years old was associated with higher rates of neurological mortality; patients > 70 years old had neurological mortality rates of 7.4% compared with 3.3% for patients 61-70 years old, 2.7% for patients 51-60 years old, and 0.5% for patients ≤ 50 years old (p = 0.006). On multivariate logistic regression analysis, increasing age was associated with higher odds of combined neurological morbidity and mortality (odds ratio 1.02, 95% confidence interval 1.00-1.05; p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS Increasing age is associated with higher neurological morbidity and mortality after Pipeline embolization of intracranial aneurysms. However, the overall complication rates of PED treatment in this group of highly selected elderly patients (> 70 years) were acceptably low, suggesting that age alone should not be considered an exclusion criterion when considering treatment of intracranial aneurysms with the PED.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:The mechanisms underlying frontal lobe dysfunction in moyamoya disease (MMD) are unknown. We aimed to determine whether chronic ischemia induces subtle microstructural brain changes in adult MMD and evaluated the association of changes with neuropsychological performance. METHODS:MRI, including 3-dimensional T1-weighted imaging and diffusion tensor imaging, was performed in 23 adult patients with MMD and 23 age-matched controls and gray matter density and major diffusion tensor imaging indices were compared between them; any alterations in the patients were tested for associations with age, ischemic symptoms, hemodynamic compromise, and neuropsychological performance. RESULTS:Decrease in gray matter density, associated with hemodynamic compromise (P<0.05), was observed in the posterior cingulate cortex of patients with MMD. Widespread reduction in fractional anisotropy and increases in radial diffusivity and mean diffusivity in some areas were also observed in bilateral cerebral white matter. The fractional anisotropy (r=0.54; P<0.0001) and radial diffusivity (r=-0.41; P<0.01) of white matter significantly associated with gray matter density of the cingulate cortex. The mean fractional anisotropy of the white matter tracts of the lateral prefrontal, cingulate, and inferior parietal regions were significantly associated with processing speed, executive function/attention, and working memory. CONCLUSIONS:In adult MMD, there were more white matter abnormalities than gray matter changes. Disruption of white matter may play a pivotal role in the development of cognitive dysfunction.