Brain and Spinal Cord
The Neuro-Interventional Radiology service performs endovascular surgery (surgery from inside the blood vessels) on a variety of vascular disorders of the brain and spine. The procedures are performed using tiny flexible catheters (tubes) inserted into blood vessels via a small incision in your groin or arm. Using x-ray imaging, the Neuro-Interventional Radiologist moves the catheter over a guide-wire to reach the target blood vessel in the brain or spine.
Angiography (pictures of blood vessels) is obtained by injecting iodinated contrast (“x-ray dye”) through the catheter. A variety of interventions can also be performed through these catheters including:
- Removal or fragmentation of clots within blood vessels of the brain
- Delivering clot-busting & vasodilator medications at the site of blood clot / narrowing in brain arteries
- Placement of stents (a tiny metal scaffold used to prop open a narrowed or occluded blood vessel)
- Placement of metallic coils within blood vessels and aneurysms
- Balloon-dilatation (angioplasty) of narrowed blood vessels
- Injection of particulate or glue-like materials to occlude abnormal blood vessels
Through these minimally invasive interventions, we are able to treat a wide range of neurovascular conditions including:
- Intracranial aneurysms (ballooning or “blister” formation of a segment of blood vessel in the brain which can rupture and bleed)
- Arterio-venous malformations (AVMs) which consist of a tangle of abnormal blood vessels with a propensity to bleed or cause seizures
- Intracranial & extracranial atherosclerotic vascular disease that may result in strokes, mini-strokes, fainting spells, visual loss
- Acute thrombo-embolic stroke (brain-attack)
- Dural arteriovenous fistulas (abnormal arterial to venous connections within the fibrous covering layer of the brain)
- Spinal vascular malformations (abnormal arterial to venous connections associated with the spinal cord)
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage vasospasm (narrowing of brain arteries due to irritation by blood breakdown products)
- Dural venous sinus thrombosis (blood clots within the major venous outflow channels of the brain)
- Spinal and head & neck tumors (pre-operative blocking of arteries that supply tumors can dramatically reduce blood loss during surgery)
Epistaxis (injection of particulate material into the arteries supplying the nose for treatment of nose bleeds that are recalcitrant to packing and cautery)
