Correlation of the angioarchitectural features of cerebral arteriovenous malformations with clinical presentation of hemorrhage.

Superselective angiography is the most accurate technique in the analysis of brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) angioarchitecture. Therefore, we reviewed the selective and superselective angiograms of 100 consecutive patients with intracerebral AVMs. Our purpose was to determine which parameters of angioarchitecture were significantly correlated with a clinical presentation of hemorrhage. The vascular characteristics evaluated on the angiograms were the size of the AVM, the location of the AVM, the type of nidus, the type of feeders, the characteristics of venous drainage, and the number and location of aneurysms. The parameters found to correlate with hemorrhage were deep venous drainage (P = 0.01), feeding by perforators (P = 0.01), intranidal aneurysm(s) (P = 0.004), multiple aneurysms (P = 0.001), feeding by the vertebrobasilar system (P = 0.002), and location in the basal ganglia (P = 0.04). Six parameters of AVM angioarchitecture were correlated with a clinical presentation of hemorrhage. Among these parameters, three (feeding by perforators, number of aneurysms, and presence of intranidal aneurysms) were well displayed by superselective angiogram.