Impact of Surgical Treatment of Unruptured Aneurysms

Abstract

To the Editor: In the June 2004 issue of Stroke , Britz et al1 provide us with a clear example of misleading information and nonscientific analysis. The credibility and authority enjoyed by Stroke , combined with a craving for any possible enlightenment on the management of unruptured intracranial aneurysms, strengthen the impact of such a publication and justify the necessity to critically review this work. I would like to rephrase the problem on which the authors focused: My hypothesis is that physicians tend to offer a preventive but risky treatment to patients who are most likely to benefit. I believe this hypothesis to be reasonable; in fact, this is all that was shown by the study. If we are to retrospectively compare patients who underwent operation to those who were denied surgery for the same condition, we may end up …