Introduction/Purpose Cerebral angiography is an invasive procedure used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in cerebral atherosclerotic diseases. Prolonged duration of procedures has been linked with higher likelihood of complications. A better understanding of the factors that influence procedure duration is required to enhance patient safety, as they have important implications for both reimbursements and patient care.

Materials and Methods Data were retrospectively collected over a two month period for a cohort of patients undergoing diagnostic cerebral angiography at our centre. Medical charts were reviewed and data were collected for patients regarding diagnoses of hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes, and tobacco abuse. We also recorded age, gender, weight and height for calculation of Body Mass Index (BMI), number of vessels studied, and procedure start and end time.

Regression analysis was used to determine the factors that were most strongly associated with the duration of procedure. The variables included in this analysis were hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes, tobacco abuse, age, BMI>30, and the total number of vessels studied during the procedure. We also looked at correlation of total number of risk factors (hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes, tobacco abuse, BMI>30, and age>65) with the procedure duration in each patient.

Results A total of 38 charts including 22 females and 16 males were identified and reviewed. The age of our patients ranged from 27 to 88 years with mean age 56.76 years, S.D = 14.2. Frequencies of various risk factors for the total sample were: hypertension (60%), hyperlipidaemia (45%), diabetes (9%), tobacco abuse (42%), BMI >30 (32%) and age>65 (26%). Using stepwise regression, we found that BMI>30 (p=0.010) and then age (p=0.021) were the strongest predictors of procedure length, and both in combination accounted for 30% of the total variance (p=.003). Correlational analysis showed a significant relationship between total number of risk factors and procedure duration (r=0.57, p=0.001). Surprisingly, total number of vessels studied during each procedure did not correlate with the procedure time (r= -0.043, p=.80).

Conclusion Patient characteristics such as BMI and age are associated with prolonged duration of procedures. These risk factors does play an important role in the patient care and hence with the reimbursements of such procedures. Further large prospective studies are required to corroborate with our findings.

Disclosures K. Malhotra: None. C. Schramke: None. A. Ku: None.