Device to Improve Brain Aneurysm Treatment

Researchers are working on a device to help treat aneurysms better. Aneurysms are the irregular bulges in blood vessels that are often deadly. Lee, an associate professor in the Gallogly College of Engineering, is specifically targeting subarachnoid hemorrhages, or bleeding that occurs in the space between the brain and the surrounding membrane. This kind of bleeding usually happens when an aneurysm bursts in the brain.

The current methods for treating intracranial or brain aneurysms are surgical clip ligation which requires a high-risk open-skull surgery, or the current “gold standard” called endovascular coil embolization, a minimally invasive surgery that uses a catheter to deliver soft coils to prevent the flow of blood into the affected blood vessel.

New Device Redefines Brain Aneurysm Treatment

“The driving problem is even with this technique, due to the complexity of the shape, size or the geometry of the aneurysm, is that there is a heightened risk of recurrence,” Lee said. “It's possible that five or six years after initial embolization, 20-25% of the patients will develop the same issue again. So, it’s increasing the corresponding health care burden and may also lead to poor prognosis and even the mortality for the patient.”

Lee is working with Yingtao Liu, Ph.D., William H. Barkow Presidential Professor and associate professor in the Gallogly College of Engineering at OU; Bradley N. Bohnstedt, M.D., a neurosurgeon at Indiana University School of Medicine; and Hyowon Lee, Ph.D., a biomedical engineer at Purdue University. Funded by a $3.25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for the five-year project, the researchers will use advanced biomedical 3-D printing to design and create unique, customized devices that can be tailored to the specific geometrical shape, size and location of an aneurysm.

Source-Eurekalert