Experts at Baptist Health Neuroscience Center and Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute are the first in South Florida to repair brain aneurysms in a minimally invasive manner using an all-new technology.
WEB, short for Woven EndoBridge, is a self-expanding mesh ball made of nickel titanium that is implanted within aneurysms located in the arteries of the brain.
For patients with potentially dangerous aneurysms, it is also a new life-saving device approved just months ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Interventional neuroradiologist Guilherme Dabus, M.D., with Baptist Health Neuroscience Center, this month performed the first minimally invasive surgery in South Florida using the WEB on a woman in her 70s who is recovering well.
In the recent past, experts have avoided cutting the skull open in brain aneurysm repairs with the help of another device, the flow diverter. Before the flow diverter was approved, more commonly used balloons, stents and platinum coils induced clotting (embolization), and hopefully prevented blood from continuing to grow the bulge- or balloon-like aneurysms.
Now, the WEB device offers many advantages for the patient, including a shorter recovery time, less or no dependence on blood-thinning drugs and potentially fewer complications during a procedure that runs just an hour or less, says Dr. Dabus. Procedures involving coiling and the flow diverter can be more complicated, can take much longer and require the patient to stay on antiplatelet therapy for the rest of their lives.
“The WEB basically redirects the blood flow away from the aneurysm,” says Dr. Dabus. “At the same time, it closes the aneurysm from the inside. And it potentially also serves as a scaffold for tissue healing at the neck of the aneurysm.”
