Complex hydrocephalus (combination of communicating and obstructive type): an important cause of failed endoscopic third ventriculostomy

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Abstract

Background

Hydrocephalus can be classified as purely obstructive, purely communicating or due to combinations of pathologies (obstruction in addition to defective absorption). Endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) as an alternative to shunt procedures is an established treatment for obstructive hydrocephalus. However, patients who have combination of pathologies (complex hydrocephalus) could result in failure of ETV in spite of a patent stoma. The aim of this study was to prospectively evaluate the incidence of complex hydrocephalus in patients with obstructive hydrocephalus who failed an endoscopic third ventriculostomy.

Findings

Seventy one patients of obstructive hydrocephalus who underwent ETV in our institution were included in this study. Aetiology of hydrocephalus included congenital aqueductal stenosis in 42 and tubercular meningitis (TBM) in 29 patients. Failure of ETV was seen in 15 (21%) patients. These 15 patients included 6 (14.3%) from the congenital group and 9 (31.0%) patients from the TBM group. Iohexol CT ventriculography confirmed a patent stoma (suggesting a complex hydrocephalus) in 10 (66.7%) out of the 15 failed ETV cases. The incidence of complex hydrocephalus was more common in TBM group (8/29 patients, 27.60%) compared to congenital group (2/42 patients, 4.8%). The complex hydrocephalus patients with a patent ETV stoma were successfully managed by a lumbar peritoneal (LP) shunt.

Conclusion

Ten out of the 71 patients (14%) with obstructive hydrocephalus who underwent an ETV had a complex hydrocephalus, which was the major (66.7%) cause for failure of ETV. Improving methods to detect the exact type of hydrocephalus pre-operatively could increase success rate of ETV and avoid an unnecessary operative procedure (ETV).

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Most cited references 16

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Endoscopic third ventriculostomy in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: an Italian multicenter study.

Michelangelo Gangemi, Francesco Maiuri, Michele Naddeo … (2008)

The aim of the report is to define the indications and results of endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus and to discuss the physiopathological mechanism of this procedure. The cases of 110 patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus who underwent ETV in four Italian neurosurgical centers were retrospectively reviewed. The postoperative outcome was correlated with patient age, length of clinical history, preoperative clinical score, symptoms of clinical onset, type of hydrocephalus, and intraoperative findings. The follow-up period ranged from 2 to 12 years (average, 6.5 yr). The outcome evaluation was made 2 years after the procedure. Postoperative clinical improvement occurred in 76 (69.1%) of 110 patients. There was no correlation between success rate and patient age or type of ventricular enlargement (normal or enlarged fourth ventricle). Conversely, the rate of neurological improvement was higher in patients with shorter clinical history, better preoperative neurological score, and clinical onset with gait disturbances. Moreover, the intraoperative finding of the sudden reappearance of normal cerebral pulsations and significant downward and upward movements of the third ventricular floor after ETV was also correlated with a good outcome. ETV results in a relatively high rate of clinical improvement and a low complication rate in patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus. Therefore, it may be easily performed with the same approach used for intracranial pressure monitoring with low morbidity. However, our data must be confirmed by additional studies.

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Endoscopic third ventriculostomy in the management of obstructive hydrocephalus: an outcome analysis.

G Steven Huang, Dongdong Zhao, Xiaoling Liao … (2004)

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the safety and efficacy of, and indications and outcome prognosis for endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) in 58 patients with obstructive hydrocephalus. Between September 1999 and April 2003, 58 ETVs were performed in 58 patients with obstructive hydrocephalus (36 male and 22 female patients) at the authors' institution. The ages of the patients ranged from 5 to 67 years (mean age 35 years) and the follow-up period ranged from 3 to 41 months (mean duration of follow up 24 months). Patients were divided into four subgroups based on the cause of the obstructive hydrocephalus: 21 with intracranial tumors; 11 with intracranial cysts; 18 with aqueductal stenosis: and eight with intracranial hemorrhage or infection. Both univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed to assess the prognostic relevance of the cause of the obstructive hydrocephalus, early postoperative clinical appearance, and neuroimaging findings in predicting the result of the ETV. The survival rate was 87% at the end of the 1st year and 84% at the end of the 2nd year post-ETV. One month after ETV an overall clinical improvement was observed in 45 (77.6%) of 58 patients. If we also consider the successful revision of ETV in two patients, a success rate of 78.3% (47 of 60 patients) was reached. The ETV was successful in 17 (81%) of 21 patients with intracranial tumors, nine (82%) of 11 with cystic lesions, 16 (88.9%) of 18 with aqueductal stenosis, and three (38%) of eight with intracranial hemorrhage or infection. A Kaplan-Meier analysis illustrates that the percentage of functioning ETVs stabilizes between 75 and 80% 1 year after the operation. In a comparison of results 1 year after ETV, the authors found that the aqueductal stenosis subgroup had the highest proportion of functioning ETV (89%). The proportions of the tumor and cyst subgroups were 84 and 82%, respectively, whereas the proportion was only 50% in the ventriculitis/intracranial hemorrhage subgroup (strata log-rank test: chi2 = 7.93, p = 0.0475). In the present study, ETV failed in eight patients (13.8%) and the time to failure after the procedure was a mean of 3.4 months (median 2 months, range 0-8 months). The logistic regression analysis confirmed an early postoperative improvement (within 2 weeks after ETV, significance [Sig] of log likelihood ratio [LLR] < 0.0001) and a patent stoma on cine phase-contrast magnetic resonance (MR) images (Sig of LLR = 0.0002) were significant prognostic factors for a successful ETV. The results demonstrated the multivariate model (B = -53.7309, standard error = 325.1732, Wald = 0.0273, Sig = 0.8688) could predict a correct result in terms of success or failure from ETV surgery in 89.66% of observed cases. The Pearson chi-square test demonstrated that little reliance could be placed on the finding of a reduced size of the lateral ventricle (chi2 = 5.305, p = 0.07) on neuroimaging studies within 2 weeks after ETV, but it became a significant predictive factor at 3 months (chi2 = 8.992, p = 0.011) and 6 months (chi2 = 10.586, p = 0.005) post-ETV. Major complications occurred in seven patients (12.1%), including intraoperative venous bleeding in three, arterial bleeding in one, and occlusion of the stoma in three patients. The overall mortality rate was 10.3% (six patients). One of these patients died of pulmonary infection and another of ventriculitis. Four additional patients died of progression of malignant tumor during the follow-up period. The results indicate that ETV is a most effective treatment in cases of obstructive hydrocephalus that is caused by aqueductal stenosis and space-occupying lesions. For patients with infections or intraventricular bleeding, ETV has considerable effects in selected cases with confirmed CSF dynamic studies. Early clinical and cine phase-contrast MR imaging findings after the operation play an important role in predicting patient outcomes after ETV. The predictive value of an alteration in ventricle size, especially during the early stage following ETV, is unsatisfactory. Seventy-five percent of ETV failures occur within 6 months after surgery. A repeated ventriculostomy should be considered to be a sufficient treatment option in cases in which stoma dysfunction is suspected.

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Risk factors for failure of endoscopic third ventriculostomy for obstructive hydrocephalus.

Paul J Vorster, M Luciano, T Fukuhara (2000)

This is a retrospective study to identify risk factors for failure in the treatment of obstructive hydrocephalus with endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV). The records for 89 patients, including 32 with ventriculoperitoneal or ventriculoatrial shunt malfunctions or infections, who underwent ETVs between 1993 and 1998, at our institution, were examined. Multiple variables possibly related to failure were considered. These included age, sex, cause of hydrocephalus, presence and function of ventriculoperitoneal/ventriculoatrial shunts, history of shunt revisions or infections, symptoms, preoperative imaging results, presence of retained shunt catheters, postoperative meningitis, and postoperative ventricular size. Twenty-nine patients (32.6%) required subsequent shunt replacement and/or ETV revision. Of these 29 reoperations, 12 procedures (41.4%) were performed within 2 weeks and only 3 were performed more than 10 months after the initial ETV procedure. The ventricular size remained unchanged in 75% of the cases on the day after ETV, in 57.4% at 3 months, in 48.2% at 6 months, and in 41.8% at 1 year. Cine phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging findings were consistent with postoperative symptomatic resolution in 96.3% of the cases. Seven patients (7.9%) experienced complications related to ETV, all of which were transient. Significant risk factors in univariate analyses were as follows: presence of Chiari Type I malformation (P = 0.003), shunt infection at presentation (P = 0.014), history of shunt infections (P = 0.0004), three or more previous shunt revisions (P = 0.0018), and postoperative meningitis (P = 0.0001). Late-onset idiopathic aqueductal stenosis was a significant predictor of good outcomes (P = 0.044). These factors were reanalyzed in a multivariate analysis, which confirmed a history of shunt infections and postoperative meningitis as independent risk factors. The risk of failure increases with intracerebral infection, likely because of obliteration of cerebrospinal fluid pathways.

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Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Res Notes

Title: BMC Research Notes

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1756-0500

Publication date Collection: 2009

Publication date (Electronic): 16 July 2009

Volume: 2

Page: 137

Affiliations

[1 ]Neurosurgery unit, NSCB Medical College, Jabalpur, India

[2 ]Urology, Charing Cross Hospital, London, UK

[3 ]Radio diagnosis, NSCB Medical College, Jabalpur, India

Article

Publisher ID: 1756-0500-2-137

DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-2-137

PMC ID: 2717972

PubMed ID: 19604413

SO-VID: a3a72ce2-0ee8-49fe-80fa-45641499a0a1

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Complex hydrocephalus (combination of communicating and obstructive type): an important cause of failed endoscopic third ventriculostomy

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Estudio del peso al nacer

Most cited references 16

Endoscopic third ventriculostomy in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: an Italian multicenter study.

Endoscopic third ventriculostomy in the management of obstructive hydrocephalus: an outcome analysis.

Risk factors for failure of endoscopic third ventriculostomy for obstructive hydrocephalus.

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