Early Operation in the Elderly

Since the report presented by Ljunggren et al. (1981) and later studies confirming these findings [17], it has become standard practice in neurosurgery to perform early operation — within 72 h — for aneurysmatic subarachnoid hemorrhage on patients in Hunt and Hess grade I and II, and to a limited extent also on those in grade III. Some less recent studies are also available concerning aneurysm operation in the elderly [4, 6–9, 18], as well as individual observations about the influence of internal disorders, for example, hypertension [5, 10]. In view of some unfavorable developments in individual elderly patients after early operation, we decided to perform this retrospective study on the basis of the patient group in the Neurosurgical Department of the University of Giessen.