Dr. Richard Anderson from the Pediatric Neurosurgery Center is a senior author* of a new paper on the prevention of stroke in patients with sickle cell anemia.
Children with sickle cell anemia can sometimes have an increased risk stroke due to the development of moyamoya syndrome. This rare syndrome causes narrowing and restriction of blood flow in two of the main arteries that feed the brain. Columbia has treated more of these patients than any other center in the world. Pial synangiosis is a microscopic surgical procedure that can increase blood supply to the brain by grafting a blood vessel from the scalp to the surface of the brain.
The paper, Pial synangiosis for moyamoya syndrome in children with sickle cell anemia: a comprehensive review of reported cases, is published in the January 2014 issue of Neurosurgical Focus.
“This comprehensive review establishes pial synangiosis as a safe and effective intervention to reduce the incidence of stroke in children with sickle cell disease and moyamoya,” says Dr. Anderson. “We believe that clinicians should strongly consider screening children with sickle cell disease for moyamoya with MRA.”
You can read the abstract of this paper online here or in Neurosurg Focus. 2014 Jan;36(1).
Learn more about Dr. Richard Anderson on his bio page here.
*Co-authors include: Kennedy BC, McDowell MM, Yang PH, Wilson CM, Li S, Hankinson TC, Neil Feldstein, Anderson RC.
