Endovascular Neurosurgery

If you have a cerebrovascular condition — a problem with one of the blood vessels in or around your brain — it’s important to seek highly specialized medical care. When blood vessels in your head or neck become narrow or weak (or don’t form properly), you’re more likely to have a medical emergency such as a brain aneurysm or stroke.

Fortunately, Valley offers cerebrovascular disease treatment right here in northern New Jersey. Not only can we treat you closer to home, but in many cases, we can help you avoid traditional brain surgery.

Thanks to the advanced expertise and technology available at Valley, we can fix blocked, ruptured or other abnormal blood vessels without making any large surgical incisions or opening your skull (craniotomy). These minimally invasive techniques are often referred to as “endovascular,” “neuroendovascular” or “neurointerventional” procedures.

The Valley Approach to Endovascular Neurosurgery

Whether you need treatment for a stroke, arteriovenous malformation (AVM) or pulsatile tinnitus, we can help. Our endovascular neurosurgeons can access your brain from the inside using hollow, flexible tubes (catheters).

First, we’ll insert the catheter through a tiny incision in your wrist or groin. Then we’ll gently advance it through your blood vessels until it reaches the part of your brain needing treatment.

Once the catheter is in place, your surgeon can pass medicine or tiny treatment devices — such as stents, balloons, glue and metal wires or coils — through the catheter.

Throughout the procedure, we use a type of X-ray technology called a cerebral angiogram. This lets us see real-time images of your blood vessels, blood flow and catheter placement. It also allows us to confirm that your treatment worked.

At Valley, we offer this minimally invasive approach for planned and emergency procedures. And because our team stays up to date with all the latest endovascular technology and techniques, you can feel confident that we offer every treatment you could possibly need.

Endovascular Neurosurgery Procedures at Valley

We offer the full range of procedures to reopen blocked arteries, seal ruptured blood vessels and more. Our areas of expertise include:

• Aneurysm coiling: A tiny platinum coil placed inside a bulging blood vessel (aneurysm) blocks any more blood from entering the bulge. This prevents the aneurysm from rupturing.
• Angioplasty and stent placement: A tiny balloon is inflated inside a narrowed artery. This widens the artery, so blood can flow through it more easily. Then a tiny mesh tube (stent) is placed in the artery to keep it propped open.
• Embolization: Seals a ruptured blood vessel or blocks blood flow to an AVM, cavernous malformation or dural arteriovenous fistula.
• Epistaxis (nosebleed) embolization: Seals a blood vessel that’s causing frequent or severe nosebleeds.
• Flow diverter stent: Instead of placing a device directly inside the bulging part of an aneurysm (which resembles a balloon), a stent is placed in the main artery that feeds the aneurysm. This redirects blood flow away from the aneurysm.
• Thrombectomy: A tiny metal device resembling a cage captures a blood clot stuck inside an artery. The blood clot is then pulled out of the artery.
• Tumor embolization: Blocks blood supply to a brain tumor.
• Woven EndoBridge (WEB) aneurysm treatment: This flexible, expanding mesh ball serves two purposes: it fills the bulging portion of an aneurysm and also redirects blood flow away from it.

In collaboration with our spine surgeons, we can also use endovascular techniques to treat compression fractures in the spine. The following spine procedures can be performed using catheters:

• Kyphoplasty: Your surgeon inserts a special balloon inside a compressed, fractured vertebra. The balloon is then inflated, raising the vertebra to its normal height. This also creates space that your surgeon can fill with bone cement.
• SpineJack procedure: Your surgeon implants a tiny titanium device that resembles a car jack into your vertebra. The device expands, restoring the compressed vertebra to its normal height.
• Vertebroplasty: Your surgeon injects bone cement directly into a cracked vertebra.

Conditions Treated