ENDOVASCULAR NEUROSURGERY

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ENDOVASCULAR NEUROSURGERY

What are its advantages?

The main advantage of the endovascular approach to the treatment of aneurysms, AVMs and tumors of the brain is that the patient can avoid the craniotomy, that is the operation to open the skull and access the brain and its vessels. The same applies to operations to remove AVMs and tumors from the spinal cord.
This means that there is:

almost no mortality
insignificant complication rate
no brain or spinal cord tissue manipulation
no blood loss and no need for blood transfusion
no scarring
less patient discomfort
next day mobilization of the patient
very short hospitalization
fast return to normal life activities

Additionally there are patients for whom Endovascular Neurosurgery is the procedure of choice compared to conventional Neurosurgical operations. These are patients :

of advanced age
with other medical problems like heart disease, diabetes etc
with contraindications for surgery
with contraindications for anesthesia

There are also selected cases of stroke (brain attack), for which the endovascular therapy is the most prefered choice:

brain hemorrhage with spasm of the arteries
brain artery stenosis
acute brain ischemic attack
evolving brain ischemic attack

Endovascular procedures can even offer a great advantage to the neurosurgeon with the preoperative embolization of vascular tumours because it provides:

easier to remove tumors
higher possibility for total tumor removal
minimal blood loss
shorter operative time
shorter anesthesia time

There are a few other diseases not belonging to the neurosurgical field which can be treated with the endovascular methods, enjoying the same advantages as above. They belong to the fields of Maxillofacial Surgery, ENT Surgery and even Plastic Surgery and are the following:

vascular malformations of the face, head and neck
vascular tumors of the face, head and neck
vascular malformations of the skin

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Page maintained by: Vasilis Katsaridis, MD