“Non-Invasive” Brain Surgery?

I guess non-invasive here means not cracking open the skull. But it still involves passing a catheter up the femoral artery into the blood vessels within the brain. This approach can help with some causes of two types of stroke: intracranial stenosis (narrowing of a brain artery by atherosclerosis) and arteriovenous malformation (AVM, where vessels are weakened by dilatations). In the first, a cerebral thrombosis, and in the second a cerebral hemorrhage may occur.

University of Michigan neurosurgeons have used a special stent for treating intracranial stenosis; the Wingspan intracranial stent is specially designed to conform to the variability and curvature of cerebral blood vessels.

AVMs have small weak spots like one on a tire when it’s just about to burst. To prevent this cerebral hemorrhage, a stent can be placed together with a coil that helps to seal off the dilatation. Alternatively, a liquid called Onyx can be injected into the AVM through a tiny tube that’s fed there via the blood vessels; the Onyx liquid embolic system has proved effective in a large-scale clinical trial.

These two uses of minimally invasive endovascular surgery demonstrate what we can expect in the future. It’s beginning to look more like what we learned about the sort of treatment dished out to Flash Gordon in our childhood readings.

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[Bob Rae]

This must have set for any Python fan includes every episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus as well as the two disc Monty Python Live performance! Dead Parrots, Spam, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Ministry of Silly Walks await you.