Biplane angiography offers window on the brain

With the biplane angiography suite in the operating room at Baptist Hospital East, endovascular and surgical procedures can be performed more swiftly and with an even greater degree of safety for patients.

The equipment reduces the length of a procedure by at least 50 percent. It also reduces the risk during a procedure because the number of times radiographic dye has to be injected into the artery is reduced by 50 percent.

The biplane system takes very detailed and clear X-ray pictures. By watching these images, physicians can thread extremely fine catheters through blood vessels that lead directly to problem areas in the brain. Once there, they can seal off aneurysms, destroy clots, choke off the blood supply to tumors and open up clogged arteries with stents -- all without surgery.

Also, high quality images can be obtained during craniotomy, allowing real-time control of aneurysm displacement or fistula occlusion.

Blood vessels can be viewed from two different angles at the same time with the biplane system. The old imaging equipment gave a view of the brain in only one plane. With that limited view, it could be difficult to navigate some arteries or enter some aneurysms or branch vessels.

The biplane system demonstrates the anatomy of an aneurysm in a very robust fashion that was not previously available at Baptist East.

In addition, the system offers three-dimensional rotational angiography. After dye is injected into a blood vessel, the machine spins on a 180-degree axis, giving three-dimensional information about an aneurysm. The biplane angiography provides the most accurate anatomic perspective to help determine the most effective treatment for an aneurysm.

Locating the biplane system in Surgical Services offers a distinct advantage for patients. A patient coming in the Emergency Department with a ruptured aneurysm can go directly to the operating room, have a diagnostic arteriorgram performed, and a decision can be made immediately on an open surgery or endovascular procedure -- both of which could be performed in the same room.

The biplane system is a sophisticated system comparable to those found in most top academic institutions.