Rare interventional procedure in the brain performed

A 50-year-old man was treated for a rare problem of abnormal connection between an artery supplying blood to brain and vein in the base of brain, which commonly occur after an accident.
Marimuthu, came to Sri Ramakrishna hospital last week with the problem of bulging left eye with severe redness and continuous watery discharge for the past seven days.
Senior consultant neurosurgeon Dr Murali and Dr P Muthurajan, consultant neuro and vascular interventional radiologist, examined the patient and diagnosed the rare problem.
Marimuthu has suffered road traffic accident a month back, Muthurajan said in a release, adding that if not treated, patient's eye swelling will progressively increase leading to lose his vision.

For this kind of abnormal connection of blood vessels (caroticocavernous fistula), the ideal test was catheter angiogram to study the brain vessels, which was done on the patient and identified the exact location, Muthurajan said.
"We then closed the abnormal connection between the brain vessels with platinum coils through small pinhole in the groin (thigh) using small tubes and wire. The next day patient was normal" he said.
Apart from this procedure, the hospital has performed yet another endovascular coiling (closing the ruptured brain vessel) for another patient which was a fatal condition, Muthurajan said.