Selection of treatment modalities or observation of arteriovenous malformations.

This article provides management guidelines for arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). Management options include observation, surgical excision, endovascular embolization, and radiosurgery. Each of these can be used individually or combined for multimodal therapy based on the characteristics of the lesion. The article stratifies each lesion based on the AVM and patient characteristics to either observation or a single or multimodal treatment arm. The treatment of an AVM must be carefully weighed in each patient because of the risk of neurologic injury in functional areas of the brain and weighed against the natural history of hemorrhage.