Therapeutic percutaneous embolization for extra-axial vascular lesions of the head, neck, and spine.

Therapeutic percutaneous embolization of extra-axial vascular tumors and arteriovenous malformations was performed 41 times in 27 patients. Twenty-one patients (78%) had a clinically favorable result. In 11 of these patients, the procedure was preoperative and caused a dramatic reduction of surgical blood loss. In the remaining 10 patients with a favorable result, therapeutic embolization alone resulted in a significant clinical amelioration documented by a detailed follow-up varying from 2 to 5 years. In patients with uncontrollable epistaxis, the procedure was life-saving. The guidelines and instrumentation for a safe and effective technique are presented, based on the authors' experience with more than 100 cases of vascular lesions of the brain and spinal cord. A low-viscosity silicone polymer was developed by the authors and used clinically as an intravascular adhesive for the embolization of vascular tumors.