Purpose: Cerebral arteriovenous malformations surrounded by cerebrospinal fluid seemed to exhibit worse response to radiosurgery than others. We searched to verify if this is was true and to find causes.
Material: and methods. From our series of 705 patients with cerebral arteriovenous malformations treated by radiosurgery, 3,8% (27/705) had choroidal or cisternal arteriovenous malformations. Revelation mode was hemorrhage in 86% of cases but sometimes headaches occurred before hemorrhage; thus overall hemorrhage rate was 96%. Mean age of revelation was 24. Mean size was 20 mm, mean volume was 4 cc. Spetzler & Martin's grades were 35% in grade II, 43% in grade III and 22% in grade IV. Location was ventricular in 63% of cases and cisternal in 37%. Mean dose at reference isodose was 24 Gy with a higher rate of monoisocenters. We looked for differences between this population of arteriovenous malformations and the rest of the series for patients, treatments prior radiosurgery, cerebral arteriovenous malformations's characteristics, dosimetric parameters and complications. Statistical analysis was done with a Pearson chi2 test and Spearman non parametric correlation test.
Results: Obiteration rate was 47.6% with a mean delay of 26 months. Differential characteristics of choroidal or cisternal arteriovenous malformations were: younger age of revelation, higher frequency of hemorrhage, of intra or paranidal aneurysms, of deep unique drainage, a higher Spetzler grade and a smaller rate of complete recovering. Mortality and clinical morbidity due to radiosurgery were 0%. Actuarial rate of hemorrhage after radiosurgery was 4,34% per year and per patient or per hemorrhage. This rate was higher than in the global series. Parenchymal changes seen on MRI were less frequent (26,6%) and less serious (no grade 4 radionecrosis-like parenchymal changes).
Conclusion: Choroidal or cisternal arteriovenous malformations seem to respond less to radiosurgery than others. One potential explanation is the higher frequency of multiafferences of these arteriovenous malformations with anastomoses of anterior and posterior choroidal arteries. However, radiosurgery still stay a treatment of choice for these arteriovenous malformations with little adaptations of the irradiation strategy.