Endovascular Procedures

• Intra-operative angiography: X-ray dye is injected into brain arteries during brain surgery, which provides real time, immediate feedback to the surgeon, helping to improve accuracy and outcomes.
  
  
• Intracranial angioplasty and stenting: Narrowed brain arteries (stenosis) can lead to stroke. This can now be treated by feeding a catheter into the narrowed artery, opening the narrowed segment with a tiny balloon, and then keeping the artery open with a metal tube (stent), much as is done with blocked arteries in the heart and elsewhere. This can increase blood flow and decrease the chances of a stroke.
  
  
• Carotid angioplasty and stenting: These procedures help treat patients with carotid stenosis who are not candidates for surgery. Significant narrowing of the carotid artery can substantially increase the risk of stroke. For individuals who are not good candidates for surgery (such as patients with severe heart disease and those who have had prior carotid artery surgery), this process can be used to enlarge the artery from within, without surgery, and to place a stent to keep the artery open.
  
  
• Embolization: Coils, balloons, beads and adhesives are used to block off the blood supply to an artery, either obliterating the abnormality (aneurysm, vascular malformation, some tumors), or greatly decreasing its blood flow, significantly lessening the risk and difficulty of definitive surgery.