Super Glue Offers New Hope for Patients With Aneurysm

A new super-glue like material can help save aneurysm patients from undergoing a major surgery. Aneurysm - a bulging, weak area in a vessel in the brain - can be life threatening when it ruptures.

"The danger of an aneurysm is that it could rupture, causing a massive brain hemorrhage. If that were to happen, there would be a 50 to 60 per cent chance that a patient would die or be disabled from that hemorrhage," the Daily Mail quoted Maj. Christopher Koebbe, as saying.

Ten years ago, doctors would have attacked brain aneurysms through invasive open surgery with large incisions in the skull.

But a new super-glue-like fluid called Onyx has made the treatment a lot easier.

Researchers have tried Onyx, and say it's a reasonable alternative to conventional surgical treatments.

"This is a great advancement," Koebbe said. "We can basically fill the aneurysm from the inside out."

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Koebbe explained, "We actually make a small opening in the femoral artery in the groin area and track long catheters into the brain cavities, into the arteries of the brain.

"The minute that fluid hits the blood, it immediately polymerizes or forms a solid. The glue literally doesn't escape the aneurysm. There's no blood getting into the aneurysm.

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"Thus, the aneurysm is cured, it's not going to bleed," he added.

Source-ANI