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ENDOVASCULAR NEUROSURGERY General Information What is Endovascular Neurosurgery ? It is a minimally invasive operative method to treat mainly vascular diseases of the brain and the spinal cord by the manipulation of a very thin catheter inside the vessels (arteries or veins). The catheter is inserted in the vessels through puncture of the femoral artery or vein and is navigated under direct X-Ray visualization to the brain or spinal cord. After reaching the desired location, various types of embolic materials are delivered to occlude (block) the diseased vessels. This is why this method is commonly referred to as embolization. Which diseases can be treated with this method ? Endovascular Neurosurgery is mainly used to treat the causes of brain hemorrhage. such as arterial aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations and also spinal arteriovenous malformations which may have caused spinal hemorrhage, paraplegia or tetraplegia. It can also be applied to open stenosed (narrowed) arteries which reduce the blood flow to the brain to prevent ischemic stroke (brain attack) or even, in the acute setting, to dissolve the thrombus (blood clot) which occludes an artery in ischemic stroke (brain attack) and reopen it. In some cases of tumors, which have many arteries delivering blood to them, they can be embolized preoperatively to block these arteries. Endovascular Neurosurgery can also estimate the adequacy of blood supply to the brain in cases where one of the main arteries has to be closed for therapeutic reasons, and finally close this artery safely. It can also help determine the function and degree of usefulness of a small part of the brain which should be removed because it causes very severe epileptic seizures which do not respond to drug therapy. What are its advantages compared to operation ? The main advantage of the endovascular approach is that the patient can avoid the craniotomy, that is the operation to open the skull and access the brain and its vessels. This means that there is a significantly lower mortality and complication rate, less patient discomfort and a very short hospitalization. Additionally there are cases for which Endovascular Neurosurgery is the procedure of choice due to its better results compared to conventional Neurosurgical operations. Endovascular procedures can even offer a great advantage to the neurosurgeon with the preoperative embolization of vascular tumours because it makes them easier to operate upon. There are also diseases, like acute stroke, for which the only method of treatment is endovascular. Some other diseases not belonging to the neurosurgical field can also be treated with the endovascular methods. They belong to the fields of Maxillofacial Surgery, ENT Surgery and even Plastic Surgery and they include vascular malformations and tumours of the face, neck and even the skin. Menu Page Previous Page Home Page Next Page Page maintained by: Vasilis Katsaridis, MD