OU Engineers Designing Device to Improve Brain Aneurysm Treatment
Under the direction of University of Oklahoma engineer Chung-Hao Lee, Ph.D. ( photo, on right ), a five-year research project will lead to designing a device that can be customized to better treat unique aneurysms, the irregular bulge in blood vessels that can be deadly. Lee, an associate professor in the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the Gallogly College of Engineering, specifically targets subarachnoid hemorrhages or bleeding in the space between the brain and the surrounding membrane. This kind of bleeding usually happens when an aneurysm bursts in the brain. The current methods for treating intracranial or brain aneurysms are surgical clip ligation which requires a high-risk open-skull surgery, or the current “gold standard” called endovascular coil embolization, a minimally invasive surgery that uses a catheter to deliver soft coils to prevent the flow of blood into the affected blood vessel. “The driving problem is even with this technique, due to the complex