Cerebrovascular events after surgery versus conservative therapy for moyamoya disease: a meta-analysis

The background of this article is to determine the effect of a neurosurgical intervention in patients with moyamoya disease (MMD) on the risk of cerebrovascular events. We included studies with at least ten MMD patients in either intervention or control group which investigated cerebrovascular events during a minimal follow-up period of 1 year after neurosurgical intervention vs. conservative therapy. The primary outcome was all strokes; secondary outcome events were mortality, hemorrhagic, and ischemic stroke. Effects were evaluated for three prespecified subpopulations: adult, ischemic, and hemorrhagic moyamoya patients. We performed random-effects meta-analyses on odds ratios (ORs). We included 2,484 patients from 10 studies. The rate of all stroke was 14.1% in surgical treated compared to 30.0% in non-surgical-treated patients [pooled OR 0.38, 95%; confidence interval (CI) 0.23–0.64]. In subgroup analyses, we identified an association between surgery and all stroke in patients presenting with hemorrhagic, but not in patients with ischemic MMD. Hemorrhagic stroke during follow-up was less frequent in patients who underwent a surgical intervention, 4.6% compared to 18.6% of the conservatively treated patients (pooled OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.14–0.53). In addition, we observed a difference in mortality, 0.6% vs. 2.9% (pooled OR 0.32, 95% CI 0.13–0.77), but did not identify an association between surgical treatment and ischemic stroke (pooled OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.46–1.09). Surgical intervention in MMD is associated with a decreased risk of stroke most striking in patients presenting with hemorrhagic MMD. The relationship was present between surgical treatment and the outcome of hemorrhagic, but not ischemic stroke.