Assisted techniques for the endovascular treatment of complex or atypical cerebral aneurysms

Abstract

In the last ten years, the endovascular approach to the management of cerebral aneurysms has gone from being an alternative to surgery to being the first-choice technique in the vast majority of cases. The continuous development of new assisted techniques and of new materials for embolization has multiplied its therapeutic possibilities, so that safe and efficacious endovascular treatment is now possible for aneurysms that would have required surgery only a few years ago. These continuous technological advances require the professionals who treat patients with cerebral aneurysms to achieve a high degree of specialization and to keep up to date through continuous training. In this article, we review some of the most widely used assisted techniques in the endovascular treatment of cerebral aneurysms, discussing their main indications, their advantages over conventional embolization techniques, and their possible limitations.