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Neurointerventional surgeon Sudhakar Satti, M.D., meets with patient Christina Moore, and her
husband Leonard, with their baby boy Apollo for a joyful reunion at Christiana Hospital.
A life saved, a family saved
Ruptured aneurysms and strokes don’t only impact individuals. They change the dynamic of an entire family, potentially for generations to come.
Christina Moore was 34 in when she suddenly suffered a thunderclap headache in 2014. She and her husband Leonard had come from their home in Bel Air, Maryland, to a friend’s birthday party in Bear.
“The pain and nausea were so intense, I knew it was something really bad,” she said.
Leonard, a former Christiana Care employee, recognized something was terribly wrong. He insisted his wife be immediately transported to Christiana Hospital, which today
is the only Joint Commission-designated comprehensive stroke center in the region outside of the urban centers in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Comprehensive stroke centers are able to provide the most advanced level of expertise in stroke care.
“He said Christiana Hospital was where I needed to be,” she said.
In the Emergency Department, CT scans of Christina’s head revealed that she had suffered a ruptured “blister” brain aneurysm, a rare and difficult-to-treat condition.
“It was a very unusual case because she never smoked and she
is young, with no family history of aneurysms,” said Sudhakar Satti, M.D., the neurointerventional surgeon who treated her. “Her only risk factor for this rare subtype of brain aneurysm was being a woman of Asian descent.”
Patients who survive these ruptured aneurysms often have severe permanent deficits that devastate the dynamics of an entire family.
“They go from being the person who takes care of the family to someone who requires constant care,” Dr. Satti said.
Christina was initially treated with coiling, a minimally invasive endovascular procedure. But her condition continued to deteriorate. She experienced extreme cerebral vasospasm, a narrowing of blood vessels of the brain that reduces blood flow and causes delayed ischemic strokes. | CONTINUED
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