Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center

Services

Center for Brain Aneurysm Care

Our goal is to provide a complete range of services for the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with brain aneurysm, whether they have ruptured or not. We inform each patient and their families about the aneurysm, the natural course of a brain aneurysm over a person's lifetime, and what the possibilities are for treatment (medical management, endovascular repair, surgical repair).

A brain aneurysm, also called a cerebral or intracranial aneurysm, is an abnormal bulging outward of one of the arteries in the brain. This may be due to a weakness or injury to one or more of the three layers of tissue in the vessel wall.

Most patients with a brain aneurysm do not have symptoms, or are accidentally known to have a brain aneurysm because of a brain scan performed for other reasons not related to the aneurysm. The risk of rupture of a brain aneurysm is thought to be very low; approximately less than 1%/year. It is estimated that more than 30,000 people experience cerebral aneurysm ruptures in the United States each year. The presentation of aneurysm rupture often occurs with a severe headache that comes on suddenly. Most people claim that it is "the worse headache of my life." Nausea, vomiting or loss of consciousness may be associated symptoms with the aneurysm rupture. Ten percent of these patients die before receiving medical attention; half die 3 months after the rupture event. One out of two patients who survive a ruptured aneurysm experience serious neurological or psychological problems.

View treatment protocol and guidelines for aneurysm coiling used by BMC Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center.

For more information, please call 617 638-8456.

BMC Brain Aneurysm Physicians

Alexander Norbash, MD                       

Thanh Nguyen, MD

Carlos S. Kase, MD

James Holsapple, MD

Aneurysm Coiling Procedure

Aneurysm Coiling Procedure Steps

References

Wiebers DO, Whisnant JP, Huston J 3rd, Meissner I, Brown RD Jr, Piepgras DG, Forbes GS, Thielen K, Nichols D, O'Fallon WM, Peacock J, Jaeger L, Kassell NF, Kongable-Beckman GL, Torner JC; International Study of Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms Investigators.Unruptured intracranial aneurysms: natural history, clinical outcome, and risks of surgical and endovascular treatment. Lancet 2003;362(9378):103-10.

Jennifer S. McDonald, Robert J. McDonald, Jiaquan Fan, David F. Kallmes, Giuseppe Lanzino, and Harry J. Cloft. Comparative Effectiveness of Unruptured Cerebral Aneurysm Therapies:  Propensity Score Analysis of Clipping Versus Coiling. Stroke, February 28, 2013