What is cerebral arteriovenous malformation in children?

Cerebral arteriovenous malformation (CAVM) is a congenital disorder that develops in the earliest month of fetal life and results from a failure of arteriovenous differentiation leading to abnormal communication between the arteries and veins. Cerebral arteriovenous malformations are common in children, and more common in older children. It is the most common hemorrhagic cerebrovascular disease in children and the most common cause of spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage in children. This disease, if not completely cured, will bring the risk of hemorrhage to the child’s congregation, and the prognosis is predictably must be bad. The average age of onset of cerebral AVM in children is about 12 years. There is no significant gender difference, and about 80% are located supratentorially, with deep supratentorial malformations being more common than in adults. About 15% are multiple cAVMs, more than half of which are seen in hereditary hemorrhagic trichiasis. Hemorrhage is the most common first presentation of cerebral venous malformations in children, with about 70%-80% of children starting with hemorrhage, followed by epilepsy in about 10%-15%, and other symptoms including headache, limb weakness and numbness in less than 10% of children as incidental findings. Cerebral AVMs in children are more likely to cause hemorrhage than in adults, with an annual hemorrhage rate of about 4-8%/year, often in large amounts, with about 1 in 5 children dying of hemorrhage from the first hemorrhage, and the mortality rate from a second hemorrhage increasing further. There are many ways of grading and evaluating lower than cerebral AVM, the most commonly used is the Spetzler-Martin grading, both are famous professors in the U.S. This grading has been proposed for more than thirty years, and is now well known and accepted by doctors.The S-M grading is divided into grades 1-5.Grades 1-2 are low grade, relatively simple, and with a high rate of healing, while grades 4-5 are high grade, with a complex structure, and with a low rate of healing. There are other subtypes, including Spetzler-Martin’s complementary grading, diffuse subtypes, Lasjaunias subtypes, and Valavanis versus Yasargil subtypes. Because children with cAVM are more likely to bleed and because of the child’s long life expectancy, untreated or untreated children with cAVM have high rates of bleeding, rebleeding, and the chance of developing epilepsy, resulting in a poor natural history of childhood cAVM and a high mortality rate. Therefore, it should be treated aggressively, and the goal of treatment is to completely cure cAVM and return the child to a normal school life. Surgical resection, interventional embolization, and radiation therapy are the three main treatment modalities commonly used. They should be considered in conjunction with the presence or absence of hemorrhage, vascular architecture, diffuse or not, Spetzler-Martin classification, and whether or not the patient has undergone hematoma removal and debridement. In the majority of children, cure can be achieved with appropriate and effective treatment. Surgical resection is the most effective treatment for cAVM in children, with a cure rate of more than 90%. During the operation, the cAVM is strictly separated from the brain tissue boundary, and more than 80% of children can have preserved neurological function after the operation. Interventional embolization has wide indications, especially for cAVM combined with aneurysm, the aneurysm should be embolized first. For multiple blood-supplying arteries, high-flow and large cAVMs, staged embolization can be chosen. There are already surgical-interventional composite operating rooms, which can combine surgical treatment and interventional embolization at the same time. Intraoperative imaging can guide the extent of lesion resection in real time, which is especially suitable for functional, complex, diffuse cAVM to increase the safety of the operation, reduce the chances of intraoperative residuals, and safeguard the cure rate of total resection. For cAVM that cannot be cured by surgery and interventional therapy, radiation therapy is an option, which is generally required to be over 5 years old, and it takes 2-3 years to evaluate the therapeutic effect after treatment.