Background: Malignant middle cerebral artery infarction (MMI) is a life-threatening cerebral vascular event. Early decompressive craniectomy (DC) has proven to be an effective treatment strategy. However, the ideal candidate for DC continues to be debated.
Purpose: To investigate whether a hyperdense middle cerebral artery sign (HMCAS) provides prognostic value after DC in patients with MMI.
Material and methods: We reviewed clinical information and radiological parameters on computed tomography of 42 patients with MMI who underwent DC. Functional outcome was assessed according to the modified Rankin scale (mRS) at three months as follows: favorable outcome (mRS ≤ 4) versus unfavorable outcome (mRS > 4). Logistic regression analysis was used to identify predictors of functional outcome after DC in patients with MMI.
Results: Age (odds ratio [OR] = 0.87; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.78-0.97; P = 0.014) and HMCAS (OR = 7.40; 95% CI = 1.35-40.48; P = 0.021) were associated with functional outcome. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for predicting favorable outcome using the combination of age and HMCAS was 0.882, and the sensitivity and specificity were 0.947 and 0.696, respectively.
Conclusion: Patients with MMI with HMCAS, as well as younger patients, often showed a favorable outcome after DC in this study.
Keywords: Malignant middle cerebral artery infarction; age; decompressive craniectomy; hyperdense middle cerebral artery sign; prognosis.