Groundbreaking Brain Procedure Stops Strokes Fast

A new approach can save lives and preserve speech and memory without invasive surgery

Sari Harrar,

AARP

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Published September 27, 2024

Ollie Hirst

Kay Williams felt “real, real strange.” Her head ached; her eyes grew heavy. As she slid out of her office chair, a colleague quickly dialed 911.

“My headache turned to blackness,” says Williams, 63. “I guess that’s when the aneurysm in my brain erupted.”

It was May 2018. Williams was a healthy 56-year-old with three grown children and a successful career as a new-car salesperson in Atlanta. Suddenly, she was having the most lethal kind of brain attack — a hemorrhagic stroke caused by a burst blood vessel.

With no effective treatments for this emergency that strikes more than 100,000 Americans each year, her chance for survival hovered at 60 percent and her odds for a lifetime of disability were as high as 88 percent. When a neurosurgeon at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital told Williams’ daughter about an experimental procedure to drain the blood clot from her mother’s brain, she said yes.

MRI-equipped ambulances: A future breakthrough?

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina are testing the feasibility of equipping standard ambulances with magnetic resonance imaging machines so that EMTs can evaluate stroke patients before they reach the hospital.

“There’s no more sensitive organ than the brain,” says neurosurgeon Gustavo Pradilla, M.D., chief of neurosurgery for Grady Health System, who performed the procedure.

After a hemorrhagic stroke, every minute brings more damage. Blood accumulates and crushes delicate tissue. “The clots can be the size of a tennis ball, generating a tremendous amount of pressure in the brain,” he explains.

Treatment typically involves drugs to lower blood pressure and correct clotting problems, but those approaches can’t remove the clot itself. Conventional brain surgery is a risky last resort, Pradilla says.

Instead, he and a team approached Williams’ brain bleed with a procedure called minimally invasive parafascicular surgery (MIPS). First, they used brain scans to create a road map of Williams’ bleed. Then they threaded a thin, pencil-shaped device called BrainPath along brain folds to ground zero for her stroke.

Guided by live, magnified imaging, the device gently nudged aside white matter connections between brain areas that carry signals for speech, memory and other vital functions. The surgeons then inserted a tool called Myriad that suctioned up the clot. “Clots can become fibrous, almost like rubber,” Pradilla says. “But no matter how hard, we can get it out.”

MIPS was tested over six years in 300 people with intracerebral hemorrhage at 37 medical centers across the U.S. Survival and recovery in the 180 days after a stroke were higher for stroke patients who had MIPS than for those who received medications alone, according to a 2024 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Study coauthor Dan Barrow, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery at Emory University, noted that the findings marked “a historic advancement” in the field.

“I have seen many amazing outcomes,” Pradilla says. “Patients came in unable to speak and walk, almost in a coma-like state with a breathing tube. [These patients] can now walk, speak and return to a normal life.”

Just four months later, Williams was back to selling cars, a job she’s loved for 38 years now. Her only concession: wearing sneakers instead of high heels because she feels a little dizzy sometimes.

She had a seizure a few months after returning to work and takes anti-seizure medication. “I feel better,” she says. “I think better with the medication too.”

Williams now gives motivational talks to youth groups, including incarcerated young people. “I want people to know to always believe in God and have faith,” she says. “That research saved my life.”

Know the warning signs of stroke

It takes stroke victims a median time of 140 minutes to get to a hospital, according to a 2024 study. Waiting to call 911 could drastically lower your odds for lifesaving treatments, Pradilla says.

Wondering if you’re having a stroke? Use the American Stroke Association’s FAST guide: