Background: The surgical methods of endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) and ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VS) for patients with noncommunicating hydrocephalus have rapidly increased in the past 2 decades. However, there is controversy regarding the efficacy and safety of these 2 surgical methods for noncommunicating hydrocephalus. The purpose of this study was to identify whether ETV is safer and more efficacious than VS for patients with noncommunicating hydrocephalus.
Methods: We performed electronic searches in PubMed, Embase, China National Knowledge Internet, and the Cochrane Library to identify studies published up to February 03, 2018. The study summary results included improvement of symptoms, major complications, hematoma, infection, reoperation, mortality, duration of surgery, and hospital stay. Odds ratios (ORs) or standard mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using random-effects models.
Results: We identified 10 observational studies (4 prospective and 6 retrospective studies) with data collected from 2017 patients with noncommunicating hydrocephalus. First, there was no significant difference between ETV and VS for symptom improvement (OR: 0.83; 95%CI: 0.46-1.50; P = .534). Second, ETV was associated with lower incidence of major complications when compared with VS (OR: 0.31; 95%CI: 0.17-0.56; P < .001). Third, ETV has little or no significant effect on hematoma (OR: 0.65; 95%CI: 0.22-1.92; P = .433) and mortality (OR: 0.90; 95%CI: 0.11-7.72; P = .926). Fourth, ETV were associated with lower incidence of infection (OR: 0.20; 95%CI: 0.06-0.69; P = .010) and reoperation (OR: 0.22; 95%CI: 0.08-0.56; P = .002). Finally, patients who received ETV had shorter duration of surgery (SMD: -1.71; 95%CI: -3.16 to -0.27; P = .020) and hospital stay (SMD: -0.91; 95%CI: -1.45 to -0.38; P = .001).
Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides robust evidence that ETV has greater benefits in terms of major complications, infection, reoperation, duration of surgery, and hospital stay than VS for patients with noncommunicating hydrocephalus.