Clinical studyComplications of Modern Diagnostic Cerebral Angiography in an Academic Medical Center
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
From July 2001 through June 2007, 3,636 consecutive diagnostic catheter cerebral arteriograms were obtained by neurointerventionalists at a large academic institution. Of note, diagnostic procedures done in conjunction with interventional procedures were excluded from this dataset. Data on patients with complications were prospectively acquired over the 72-month period according to institutional policies for quality assurance and the New York Patient Occurrence Reporting and Tracking System
Patients
Over the 72 months of the study period, 3,636 diagnostic angiograms were obtained for indications delineated in Figure 1. The most common indication for angiography was unruptured aneurysm (26.9%), followed by subarachnoid hemorrhage (20.7%). The population was predominately female (62%), with a mean age of 50.5 years ± 17.1 (range, 2 months to 97 years). Most patients (65.4%) were inpatients and 34.6% were outpatients. There were more patients with the diagnoses of subarachnoid hemorrhage and
Discussion
Since the 1970s, several centers have reported their complication rates for cerebral angiography (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18). Complications are relatively uncommon, and their incidence has decreased in recent decades. Presumably, decreasing complication rates are related in part to technologic improvements in catheters, guide wires, and nonionic contrast agents, and the development of high-resolution digital subtraction imaging with roadmap capabilities. Operator
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Raquel Richard for assistance with data collection and collation.
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None of the authors have identified a conflict of interest.