Research...Who Needs It?
By Tom Quirk

Scituate - Brain aneurysms are weak, bulging spots on a brain artery that form silently over time; injury, infection or inherited tendency, are often associated factors. Smoking, alcohol and oral contraceptives may contribute. The classic symptom is “the worst headache of your life,” which often precedes a major rupture. There are no known ways to prevent a cerebral aneurysm from forming, and once ruptured, treatment is often complex and recovery prolonged.

Some 700,000 individuals (.23% of the population) are diagnosed each year with lung, colon, breast and prostate cancer and 285,000 or 41% of that number will die. The respective disease mortality rates are: lung (83%), colon (39%), breast (23%) and prostate (16%). Chest x-rays, colonoscopies, mammograms and prostate specific antigen (PSA) procedures are routine and insurance covered components of an annual physical.

Statistics extrapolated from post mortem examinations suggest that 10 to 15 million individuals (3% to 5% of the U.S. population have undetected and un-ruptured brain aneurysms. The family demographic potentially impacted is a sizable multiple with 68% of the total households being family oriented. Thirty thousand people will hemorrhage this year and 15,000 or 50% of those who rupture, will die. Of the survivors, many will have substantial deficits and may require institutionalization.

At the present time there are no effective, inexpensive and insurance covered screening tests that would disclose a brain aneurysm’s existence and permit an early intervention opportunity, prior to a more devastating rupture event. Being largely asymptomatic, when diagnosed early, it is usually because of an unrelated scan for an accident or sports injury.

This is a priority brain aneurysm research objective and this challenge is most compelling!

Research...who needs it? We all do!

About The Author
For more information you may contact Tom Quirk at (781) 545-2300, extension 628 or via email at tfquirk@aol.com. For more detailed information about brain aneurysms, please visit the Brain Aneurysm Foundation’s web site at www.bafound.org.