The addition of a simple stent can help prevent potentially lethal blood vessel bulges in the brain from recurring after they are repaired in a minimally invasive “coiling” procedure, according to new research by Johns Hopkins physicians. A report on the research, published in the July Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery, could make coiling a more viable option for the 30,000 people diagnosed with brain aneurysms each year in the United States, the investigators say. Cerebral aneurysms, abnormal outward pouching of blood vessels in the brain, are traditionally repaired by an “open” operation, in which surgeons remove part of the skull, cut into the brain to reach the affected blood vessel, and then place a metal clip on the vessel where it balloons outward to close it down.
