Intracranial placement of a new, compliant guide catheter: technical note

We describe our initial experience with the use of a novel, compliant guide catheter designed for placement within the cranial vasculature in a series of seven patients who were treated for various intracranial pathologies.

Seven patients were deemed to have either tortuous supra-aortic, intracranial, and/or extracranial vasculature or to require additional microcatheter support as the result of lesion location.

The patients were treated, in part, with the 6-French Neuron delivery catheter (Penumbra, Inc., San Leandro, CA) at the authors' two institutions. The guide catheter was positioned in various distal locations within the intracranial internal carotid artery or external carotid artery. Three patients were treated for unruptured intracranial aneurysms, 2 patients for intracranial atherosclerosis, 1 patient for an arteriovenous malformation, and 1 patient for a pseudoaneurysm.

All lesions were successfully treated through a microcatheter advanced in a coaxial fashion through the guide catheter. There were no complications related to the positioning of the catheter. Distal intra- or extracranial placement of a specially designed, compliant guide catheter can be performed safely and may improve access and microcatheter stability in patients with tortuous vessels or difficult-to-reach lesions.