Object: Until recently, wide-necked aneurysms were not considered amenable to treatment with coil embolization. The recent introduction of intracranial stents has provided a method of preventing coil migration out of wide-necked aneurysms. The Neuroform2 Treo is a modification of the Neuroform stent; the new version has a higher metal/artery ratio. The authors' initial experience with the use of this stent in combination with coil embolization to treat widenecked intracranial aneurysms is reported and technical considerations are discussed.
Methods: The authors' first 10 consecutive patients with wide-necked intracranial aneurysms were included in this study. Inclusion criteria restricted the group to adult patients with wide-necked intracranial aneurysms (ruptured and unruptured lesions). A wide neck was defined as a dome/neck ratio of less than 2 or a neck that was 4 mm or wider as measured on angiograms. Immediate postprocedure angiography studies were performed to determine successful coil occlusion of the aneurysm as well as patency of the parent vessel. Six-month follow-up angiograms were obtained in all patients. Ten aneurysms with poor dome/neck ratios (< 2) were studied in 10 patients. In all cases the stent was delivered to the aneurysm site and positioned without difficulty. No branch artery compromise was observed. A technical difficulty occurred in one case, with prolapse of a coil into the parent vessel, which was successfully corrected with no adverse clinical effects. There were no clinical or neurological complications associated with endovascular treatment of aneurysms in this series. One patient required further coil embolization because of findings on the 6-month follow-up cerebral angiogram.
Conclusions: The Neuroform2 Treo navigates similarly to the Neuroform2, with the advantage of increased aneurysm neck coverage. This feature may lower the retreatment rates for wide-necked cerebral aneurysms.