Continuous irrigation with thrombolytics for intraventricular hemorrhage: case-control study.

Diego A Carrera, Marc C Mabray, Michel T Torbey, Jason E Andrada, Danika E Nelson, Preeyaporn Sarangarm, Heather Spader, Chad D Cole, Andrew P Carlson

Neurosurgical review 2024 Jan 10

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Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is a complication of a spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage. Standard treatment is with external ventricular drain (EVD). Intraventricular thrombolysis may improve mortality but does not improve functional outcomes. We present our initial experience with a novel irrigating EVD (IRRAflow) that automates continuous irrigation with thrombolysis.Single-center case-control study including patients with IVH treated with EVD compared to IRRAflow. We compared standard demographics, treatment, and outcome parameters between groups. We developed a brain phantom injected with a human clot and assessed clot clearance using EVD/IRRAflow approaches with CT imaging.Twenty-one patients were treated with standard EVD and 9 patients with IRRAflow. Demographics were similar between groups. Thirty-three percent of patients with EVD also had at least one dose of t-PA and 89% of patients with IRRAflow received irrigation with t-PA (p = 0.01). Mean drain days were 8.8 for EVD versus 4.1 for IRRAflow (p = 0.02). Days-to-clearance of ventricular outflow was 5.8 for EVD versus 2.5 for IRRAflow (p = 0.02). Overall clearance was not different. Thirty-seven percent of EVD patients achieved good outcome (mRS ≥ 3) at 90 days versus 86% of IRRAflow patients (p = 0.03). Assessing only t-PA, reduction in mean days-to-clearance (p = 0.0004) and ICU days (p = 0.04) was observed. In the benchtop model, the clot treated with IRRAflow and t-PA showed a significant reduction of volume compared to control.Irrigation with IRRAflow and t-PA is feasible and safe for patients with IVH. Improving clot clearance with IRRAflow may result in improved clinical outcomes and should be incorporated into randomized trials. © 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

Citation

Diego A Carrera, Marc C Mabray, Michel T Torbey, Jason E Andrada, Danika E Nelson, Preeyaporn Sarangarm, Heather Spader, Chad D Cole, Andrew P Carlson. Continuous irrigation with thrombolytics for intraventricular hemorrhage: case-control study. Neurosurgical review. 2024 Jan 10;47(1):40