Microvascular decompression for hemifacial spasm involving a tortuous vertebral artery: a single-center 100-patient series with surgical nuances and literature review

Abstract

Objective: Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is occasionally caused by neurovascular compression (NVC) from a tortuous and elongated vertebral artery (VA), often with dolichoectatic changes. The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with HFS and VA involvement as an offending vessel exhibit clinicosurgical features distinct from those patients without VA involvement.

Methods: Demographics, clinical and surgical characteristics, and treatment outcomes of consecutive patients who underwent microvascular decompression (MVD) for HFS at a single institution from October 2011 to December 2016 were retrospectively reviewed. In addition, relevant publications were reviewed for the clinicosurgical characteristics of patients with HFS and tortuous VA involvement.

Results: Of 279 included patients (192 female, mean age 53.9 years), 100 (35.8%) had involvement of a tortuous VA as the offending vessel (VA+ group) and 179 (64.2%) did not (VA- group). The VA+ group had a significantly higher proportion of males (OR 2.01, 95% CI 1.19-3.38; p = 0.01) and significantly higher left-sided preponderance (OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.22-0.62; p = 0.002) compared with the VA- group. For 3 patients (3%) in the VA+ group, the VA was the sole offending vessel responsible for HFS, while the remaining 97 patients (97%) had multiple offending vessels involved, including the anterior inferior cerebellar artery (AICA) and/or posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA). Compared with the VA- group, the VA+ group had a higher percentage of PICA involvement (50% vs 33%) and lower percentage of AICA involvement (61% vs 78.2%). No significant difference was observed in the surgical outcomes (p = 0.58) or incidence of complications (p = 0.90) between the two groups. Additionally, the literature review indicated that patients with HFS and tortuous VA involvement in previous studies tended to show a weaker female preponderance and a stronger left-sided predominance compared with those without VA involvement.

Conclusions: Patients with HFS involving the VA as the offending vessel had distinct clinicosurgical features compared with those without VA compression. Furthermore, during MVD for VA-involved HFS, special attention is required to avoid missing concurrent small arteries beneath the VA on the NVC site of the affected facial nerve.

Keywords: hemifacial spasm; microvascular decompression; neurovascular compression; offending vessel; tortuous vertebral artery.