Power of SUNY

SBU Medical Center Offers Revolutionary New Treatment of Aneurysms

Stony Brook University Medical Center is offering a revolutionary new treatment to patients suffering from complex brain aneurysms. Recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) is a stent-like device that enables physicians at the Cerebrovascular Center (CVC) of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Stony Brook to treat some of the most complex and dangerous brain aneurysms using minimally invasive techniques. Stony Brook’s CVC is one of a handful of centers in the U.S. that participated in initial FDA clinical trials of PED and is currently one of the only institutions nationwide with the ability to offer treatment with PED.

David Fiorella M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Neurological Surgery and Radiology at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, treated the first patients in North America with the device in 2007 and 2008 at the Cleveland Clinic when it was first approved for Phase III trial. Over the past four years, Dr. Fiorella has published numerous clinical research papers describing the application of the Pipeline Device to treat complex brain aneurysms. Dr. Fiorella and neurosurgeon Henry Woo, M.D., Associate Professor of Clinical Neurological Surgery and Radiology at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, also have been involved in the training and proctoring of physicians on the use of PED throughout the U.S. and worldwide.

The PED is composed of multiple, fine, individual strands of platinum and cobalt chromium which are braided into a flexible, mesh tube. Once implanted across the neck of an aneurysm, the PED essentially rebuilds the diseased artery by diverting blood flow away from the aneurysm and along the course of the normal, reconstructed blood vessel. This treatment is an alternative to traditional open brain surgery or other endovascular techniques in which materials are placed within the aneurysm, such as coils or liquid embolic agents.