Background: Both early surgery and delayed surgery of ruptured arteriovenous malformation (AVM) with intracerebral hemorrhages have their own advantages and disadvantages. Due to lack of large case-control studies, timing of surgery for ruptured AVM excision is still a controversial topic. So, we did a systemic review and meta-analysis, including our experience of early surgery, to see which surgical strategy has a favorable outcome.
Materials and methods: We systematically searched several databases and journals to screen eligible studies. After synthesizing data, results of individual studies of early and delayed surgery were calculated as the effect size (ES) and 95% confident intervals (CIs), and the pooled ES was calculated using random-effects model. Heterogeneity and publication bias were assessed for the individual outcomes.
Results: A total of nine published studies, one oral presentation, and our unpublished study were included in the analysis. Delayed surgery has better results than early surgery in terms of complete excision rate (delayed ES, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.97 1.00 vs. early ES, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.91 0.99), good functional outcome (delayed ES, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.86 0.99 vs. early ES, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.51 0.84), and mortality (delayed ES, 0.00; 95% CI, 0.00 0.01 vs. early ES, 0.04; 95% CI, 0.01 0.10). Heterogeneity was significant in the results of early surgery group, and no publication bias was found in the meta-analysis.
Conclusion: Delayed surgery is superior to early surgery in achieving higher complete excision rate, good functional outcome, and reducing mortality. However, larger comparative studies are needed for subgroup analysis and for reducing the impact of various confounding factors.
Keywords: Arteriovenous Malformation; intracerebral hemorrhage; meta-analysis; systemic review.