Effect of age on clinical and morphological characteristics in patients with brain arteriovenous malformation.

Publication/Presentation Date

11-1-2003

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The goal of this work was to determine the effect of age at initial presentation on clinical and morphological characteristics in patients with brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM).

METHODS: The 542 consecutive patients from the prospective Columbia AVM database (mean+/-SD age, 34+/-15 years) were analyzed. Univariate statistical models were used to test the effect of age at initial presentation on clinical (AVM hemorrhage, seizures, headaches, neurological deficit, other/asymptomatic) and morphological (AVM size, venous drainage pattern, AVM brain location, concurrent arterial aneurysms) characteristics.

RESULTS: Hemorrhage was the presenting symptom in 46% (n=247); 29% (n=155) presented with seizures, 13% (n=71) with headaches, 7% (n=36) with a neurological deficit, and 6% (n=33) without AVM-related symptoms. Increasing age correlated positively with intracranial hemorrhage (P=0.001), focal neurological deficits (P=0.007), infratentorial AVMs (P

CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest a significant interaction of patient age and clinical and morphological AVM features and argue against uniform AVM characteristics across different age classes at initial presentation. In particular, AVM patients diagnosed at a higher age show a higher fraction of AVM hemorrhage and are more likely to harbor additional risk factors such as concurrent arterial aneurysms and small AVM diameter. Longitudinal population-based AVM data are necessary to confirm these findings.

Volume

34

Issue

11

First Page

2664

Last Page

2669

ISSN

1524-4628

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

PubMedID

14576378

Department(s)

Department of Medicine

Document Type

Article

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