Medical
Specialties
Neuroscience
(Brain, Spinal Cord & Nervous System) |
Endovascular
Coiling is a highly complex procedure that can only be performed
by properly trained neurosurgeons equipped with state-of-the-art
equipment. In contrast to surgery, endovascular coiling
does not require open-brain surgery. Instead, physicians
use real-time x-ray technology, called fluoroscopic imaging,
to visualize the patient's vascular system and treat the
disease from inside the blood vessel.
Endovascular
treatment of brain aneurysms involves insertion of a catheter
(small plastic tube) into the femoral artery in the patient's
leg and navigating it through the vascular system, into
the head and into the aneurysm. Tiny platinum coils are
threaded through the catheter and deployed into the aneurysm,
blocking blood flow into the aneurysm and preventing rupture.
The coils are made of platinum so that they can be visible
via X-ray and be flexible enough to conform to the aneurysm
shape. This endovascular coiling, or filling, of the aneurysm
is called embolization and can be performed under general
anesthesia or light sedation.
Other
endovascular neurosurgery procedures performed by the Department
include:
•
Stroke thrombolysis (use of clot-busting drugs)
• Intracranial and extracranial angioplasty (surgical
insertion of a balloon-tipped catheter into a diseased,
narrowed blood vessel; inflation of the balloon stretches
vessel opening thereby improving blood flow)
• Vascular reconstruction
• Tumor embolization (blocking blood flow to a tumor
thereby destroying it)
• Intracranial vascular embolization
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