Does an unruptured intracranial aneurysm need to be treated or not?

    With the improvement of medical imaging technology, during medical checkups or examinations for other diseases, you may find an aneurysm in the skull of a person who normally looks healthy, and your doctor may tell you that the aneurysm is like an “untimely bomb” that can trigger a serious disease at any time. -Subarachnoid hemorrhage. From the day you find out about the intracranial aneurysm, you may be torn between treating it and not treating it, because there are no symptoms, and the doctor said that there are risks in any surgery. Even if the interventional treatment is a minimally invasive procedure, there are still certain risks. If you don’t treat it, in case the aneurysm ruptures, the consequences and fate are really out of your hands. In fact, this issue has always made clinicians very torn, and this issue is discussed during the annual academic meeting, and a partial consensus has been reached that surgical intervention is recommended in the following cases: 1. a history of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage; 2. a family history of subarachnoid hemorrhage; 3. aneurysms larger than 7 mm in diameter; 4. irregularly shaped aneurysms; 5. symptomatic aneurysms; 6. posterior circulation aneurysms; 7, young patients; 8, patients with great psychological stress.  In terms of aneurysm size alone, aneurysms larger than 7mm have a higher risk of rupture and are to be treated promptly. However, it is clinically found that aneurysms smaller than this also have a risk of rupture, lowering this standard to 5mm, but in clinical work, it is often found that smaller intracranial aneurysms can rupture. Every year, we encounter many cases of rupture of tiny aneurysms around 2mm in diameter, some of which have a large amount of bleeding and are Some of them have a lot of bleeding and are quite critical. Moreover, interventional and surgical treatment of such small aneurysms is relatively difficult.  Therefore, the size of the aneurysm should not be used as the basis for judgment, but also the morphology and location of the aneurysm. If the aneurysm is not in good shape, such as lobulated aneurysm, or small protrusions on the aneurysm body, or located in a particularly large area of blood flow impact, it is necessary to consider interventional or surgical treatment.  Even if you choose conservative observation, you should not leave it to chance. You should control your blood pressure, refrain from smoking and alcohol, avoid strenuous activities and heavy physical labor, prevent tension and constipation, and have regular imaging examinations to understand the development trend of the aneurysm and adjust the treatment plan when necessary.