Brigham & Women's Hospital Finds New Way To Treat Brain Aneurysms

BOSTON (CBS) - There is a new therapy to stop deadly aneurysms from bursting.

Up to five percent of the population has brain aneurysms and often many go undetected, but can rupture with devastating consequences.

They also affect more women than men.

Fall River's Donna Murphy had a hidden danger lurking inside her head.

"I woke up and I felt dizzy and they did an MRI and thank God they did because they found out that I had a brain aneurysm," said Donna Murphy.

Brain aneurysms are commonly treated with open brain surgery, but Donna, who drives a school bus, was anxious to get back to work, and didn't want any part of that.

"I didn't want to have my skull opened if I didn't have to, that was for sure. I knew that much," Murphy said.

So Dr. Ali Aziz Sultan, a neurosurgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital offered her a new, less invasive treatment as part of an ongoing clinical trial.

Surgeons make an incision in an artery in the groin and thread a spherical mesh structure, called a web device, up into the brain.

"The device goes inside the aneurysm, causes blood flow to clot inside the aneurysm, but still through its mesh, allows blood to go to surrounding vessels," said Dr. Sultan.

Even before Donna had the procedure, Dr. Sultan and his team practiced putting the device into her aneurysm in a state of the art suit at the Brigham and Woman's Hospital using a plastic 3D printer model of Donna's brain vessels.

Later that day, they did the procedure for real, on Donna.

"For my experience it was a no-brainer," Donna Murphy said.

The Brigham is the only hospital in New England testing this web device. If all goes well with the clinical trial, it may be available to the general public within the next couple of years.