More than 6.7 million people in the U.S. have an unruptured brain aneurysm right now. A brain aneurysm ruptures every 18 minutes. Most people don’t even know they have one until it’s too late. Surgery can be complicated, but now, a new device is helping to destroy aneurysms before they cause a stroke or even worse.
Judy Sadler feared the worst.
“I woke up one morning and had a really bad bloody nose. So, I took my blood pressure and it was over 200 and I thought, ‘Great. Am I gonna have a stroke? Am I gonna die?’,” Judy recalls.
An MRI revealed a brain aneurysm in the front part of her brain – luckily, it hadn’t ruptured.
Neurointerventional surgeon at Swedish Medical Center, Ian Kaminsky, MD explains, “When that happens, an aneurysm bleeding in the brain, about 10% of people die immediately. The next 20% will not survive the hospital stay. The next third of patients will have a severe disability and leaving about a third of people who could make it out of the hospital and return back to their life.”
A brain aneurysm is a bulge coming off a weakened part of an artery. Surgery involves stents and coils to block off the aneurysm. Dr, Kaminsky is part of a nationwide clinical trial testing the contour neurovascular system to shut off the aneurysm without using stents or coils.
“It opens inside the aneurysm and blocks the flow from going into it because of how tight that mesh density is,” Dr. Kaminsky further explains.
It destroys the aneurysm. The procedure and recovery time are both shorter. Judy was back at work three days later.
“I try to do at least 4,000 steps a day. It’s helped me feel better, makes me feel young. I may be 72, but I feel like I’m 35,” Judy proudly says.
Dr. Kaminsky expects the clinical trial to last another few years before the move towards getting FDA-approval. They hope to study the contour device on 200 people across the country and are still enrolling patients.