Purpose

The purpose of this study is to compare the clinical outcome of surgical clipping and endovascular coiling for ruptured intracranial aneurysms not included in the original ISAT Study.

Condition

Eligibility

Eligible Ages
Over 18 Years
Eligible Genders
All
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
No

Inclusion Criteria

  • Patients at least 18 years of age - At least one documented, intradural, intracranial aneurysm, ruptured within last 30 days - SAH WFNS grade 4 or less - The patient and aneurysm are considered appropriate for either surgical or endovascular treatment by the treating team

Exclusion Criteria

  • Patients with absolute contraindications administration of contrast material (any type) - Patients with AVM-associated aneurysms - Aneurysm located at basilar apex

Study Design

Phase
N/A
Study Type
Interventional
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention Model
Parallel Assignment
Primary Purpose
Treatment
Masking
None (Open Label)

Arm Groups

ArmDescriptionAssigned Intervention
Active Comparator
Endovascular management
Endovascular treatment will be performed as soon as possible following randomization, according to standards of practice, and under general anesthesia. Details regarding type of coils, use of adjunctive techniques such as balloon-remodeling, stents or flow-diverters, as well as post-treatment medical management issues, will be left up to the physician performing the endovascular treatment.
  • Procedure: Endovascular management
    Endovascular treatment will also be performed as soon as possible following randomization,according to standards of practice, and under general anesthesia. Details regarding type of coils, use of adjunctive techniques such as balloon-remodeling, stents or flow-diverters, as well as post-treatment medical management issues, will be left up to the physician performing the endovascular treatment.
Active Comparator
Surgical management
Surgical clipping will be performed as soon as possible following randomization, according to standards of practice, and under general anesthesia. Aneurysms thought by the treating physicians to require deliberate permanent proximal vessel occlusion, construction of a surgical bypass, or other flow-redirecting treatments that do not directly clip the aneurysm will not be excluded; these non-ISAT aneurysms are expected to be more difficult lesions to manage surgically as well as endovascularly.
  • Procedure: surgical management
    Surgical clipping will be performed as soon as possible following randomization, according to standards of practice, and under general anesthesia. Aneurysms thought by the treating physicians to require deliberate permanent proximal vessel occlusion, construction of a surgical bypass, or other flow-redirecting treatments that do not directly clip the aneurysm will not be excluded; these non-ISAT aneurysms are expected to be more difficult lesions to manage surgically as well as endovascularly.

Recruiting Locations

Montefiore Medical Center
Bronx, New York 10467
Contact:
David J Altschul, MD
718-920-7498
DALTSCHU@montefiore.org

More Details

Status
Recruiting
Sponsor
Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM)

Study Contact

Roland Jabre, MD
514-890-8000
roland.jabre.med@ssss.gouv.qc.ca

Detailed Description

The International Subarachnoid Aneurysm Trial (ISAT) was a turning point in modern neurosurgical history (1). The trial showed that for 2143 subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)patients eligible for both surgery and endovascular coiling, randomized allocation to coiling was associated with better one year clinical outcomes, defined as survival without dependency (absolute risk reduction (ARR) of 7.4% (95%CI; 3.6 - 11.2, p=0.0001). Because ISAT was a positive pragmatic trial, the interpretation of the trial results was that coiling should be adopted as the first-line treatment for ruptured lesions, for patients with the types of aneurysms included in ISAT, of which the great majority were small (≥10 mm) anterior circulation aneurysms. Although ISAT was well-designed, conducted, and reported, trial results were not always properly interpreted, and endovascular coiling was perhaps inappropriately extrapolated beyond what ISAT demonstrated. Endovascular treatment for ruptured aneurysms has now become first-line treatment in many centers (2), which may be appropriate for small, anterior circulation lesions, but there is no evidence to support this practice for the wide spectrum of non-ISAT patients and aneurysms. A recent pre-randomized study of coiling as first-intention (3)showed better results for those ruptured aneurysms felt to be readily coilable; however, the optimal management of more difficult-to-coil ruptured aneurysms remains unclear. Further compounding the problem are the concerns that aneurysm coiling may not be as durable in the long-term as surgical clipping, leading many neurosurgeons to continue to clip most ruptured aneurysms in spite of ISAT results. Proponents of endovascular treatment sometimes justify this extrapolation of ISAT results on the basis of improved catheter and coil technology, although this has never been demonstrated. However, the addition of stents and flow-diverters, which were not tested in ISAT, may increase endovascular treatment risks, especially when combined with dual anti-platelet agents. The introduction of these devices allowed for the expansion of indications of EVT to include wide-necked aneurysms, lesions which would not have been included in ISAT. The wider spectrum of patients and aneurysms now considered for EVT may not all experience the same degree of benefit as seen in the original ISAT trial (4). Considering the relatively small ARR of 7.4% favouring coiling, when the additional risks due to stents are included, the balance may have tipped to favour surgical clipping. These new questions deserve formal study in the context of a randomized clinical trial.

Notice

Study information shown on this site is derived from ClinicalTrials.gov (a public registry operated by the National Institutes of Health). The listing of studies provided is not certain to be all studies for which you might be eligible. Furthermore, study eligibility requirements can be difficult to understand and may change over time, so it is wise to speak with your medical care provider and individual research study teams when making decisions related to participation.