Do you know what an aneurysm is?

Neuro Vascular System XV

Aneurysm is a manifestation of localized or diffuse expansion or bulging of the arterial wall due to lesions or injuries of the arterial wall, with expansile and pulsating masses as the main manifestations.

Aneurysms can occur at any age, but most of them occur in people aged 35-60. The aneurysm carrying rate in my country is about 7%.

To put it simply, it means that there are "big bumps" on the arteries. "Big pimples" can occur in parts of the body, such as the carotid artery, subclavian artery, axillary artery, brachial artery, radial artery, iliac artery, femoral artery and NF artery. If the aneurysm occurs in the cerebral artery, it will be quite dangerous. It can be life-threatening if left untreated.

Who is more likely to get aneurysm?

1) People with atherosclerosis: often accompanied by high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, etc., elderly people over 50 years old.

2) Immune diseases: Non-sensible aneurysms are mostly caused by immune diseases, such as Takayasu's arteritis, Behcet's syndrome, etc.

3) Congenital structural abnormalities of the arterial wall: such as Marfan syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

4) Injury: Patients with sharp or blunt injuries.

5) Infection: When suffering from tuberculosis, bacterial endocarditis or sepsis, bacteria can invade through wounds and then invade the arterial wall, causing the arterial wall to weaken and form an infected aneurysm.

Intracranial aneurysms have three major characteristics: high incidence, high disability rate, and high mortality. This shows that once a patient has an intracranial aneurysm, it is like placing a "time bomb" in the brain, which may be life-threatening at any time.

The incidence rate of intracranial aneurysms in the general population is about 2.3%, the rupture rate of intracranial aneurysms is about 1-2% per year, and the disability and death rate after rupture of intracranial aneurysms is about 30-40%. What's more serious is that the chance and risk of an aneurysm rupturing again are greatly increased. About 40 to 60% of patients will rupture again within one month after the aneurysm bleeds. After the second rupture, the aneurysm will become disabled and die. The rate is about 60~80%.

If an intracranial aneurysm is found, you should seek medical treatment promptly. According to data, about 1/3 of patients with intracranial aneurysm are not discovered and treated in time and die at home, 1/3 of patients die on the way to medical treatment after being discovered, and only 1/3 3% of patients can reach the hospital, which shows that the power of the bomb of intracranial aneurysm cannot be underestimated.

Is an aneurysm an aneurysm?

After the above introduction, everyone has a preliminary understanding of aneurysms. Many people find that aneurysms are both serious and not serious. What is serious is that once an aneurysm occurs, there is a risk of bleeding and a higher mortality rate, especially intracranial aneurysms; no. The serious thing is that aneurysms, unlike tumors, neither spread nor require radiation or chemotherapy. Then someone asked: Is an aneurysm a tumor? What is the difference between it and a tumor?

Is an aneurysm a tumor? An aneurysm is a local expansion of an arterial blood vessel. It is due to the thinner wall of the arterial blood vessel, fewer muscle fibers in the middle layer, and less elastic fiber in the outer layer. The weak part swells under the impact of blood flow, forming an artery. tumor. Tumors are the proliferation of local tissue cells, forming space-occupying lumpy protrusions, which we call tumors. So an aneurysm is not a tumor.

How to treat aneurysm？

Aneurysm rupture is its main hazard. According to clinical statistics, the mortality rate of patients after the first rupture of an aneurysm is 20% to 40%; the mortality rate of patients with the second rupture is as high as 60% to 80%.

Aneurysms are high-risk diseases, and not all aneurysms will rupture. Clinically, intracranial aneurysms may not rupture for life, and the patient will not experience any abnormalities. Of course, some patients also experience nerve compression symptoms and/or severe headaches after rupture and bleeding.

Clinically, it is recommended to promptly remove the hematoma and deal with the aneurysm after rupture.

Clinically, for aneurysms that have been discovered but not ruptured, clinicians generally comprehensively evaluate whether they are unruptured based on factors such as the size, location, shape, and lesion changes of the aneurysm, the age of the patient, whether there is a family history, and whether there are concurrent pathological changes. Risk of aneurysm rupture. If the risk of rupture is small, you can choose observation, but you need to establish follow-up and communicate with the doctor in time when the condition changes; if the risk of rupture is high, it is recommended that the patient undergo preventive surgery to avoid the risk of aneurysm rupture.

Currently, clinical treatments for intracranial aneurysms mainly include surgery and endovascular interventional therapy. Among them, the main surgical operation is aneurysm clipping surgery. The operation mainly involves selecting an appropriate aneurysm clip to clip the aneurysm based on the direction of the aneurysm, the length of the aneurysm neck, etc., so that the blood in the blood vessel no longer enters the aneurysm body; Endointerventional treatment is mainly interventional embolization surgery. Through extracorporeal puncture, a microcatheter is directly inserted into the brain tumor, and then a microspring coil is pushed in to perform packing to stop blood from continuing to enter the aneurysm.