Doctors at Asan Medical Center have completed more than 10,000 surgeries for brain aneurysms since the hospital first executed the operation in 1989, the Seoul-based hospital said Monday.

The neurosurgery team at Asan Medical Center in Seoul said it successfully finished the 10,000th brain aneurysm surgery on a 50-year old male by clipping the non-ruptured brain aneurysm in January.

Professor Ahn Jae-sung at Asan Medical Center in Seoul performs a surgical clipping to treat a patient with a brain aneurysm.

"The Asan Medical Center's cerebrovascular team minimizes complications by determining the best treatment method considering the age, family history, and the shape of an aneurysm in patients with unruptured cerebral aneurysms based on their rich clinical experience,” said Professor Ahn Jae-sung at the AMC’s Department of Neurosurgery.

The hospital treated an average of 800 patients over the past three years and noted that it maintained a low mortality rate of 0.09 percent and severe post-surgical effect rate of 0.38 percent over the past decade, far lower than the global standard of 4 percent.

The surgeons used the surgical clipping method on more than 7,000 cases. Surgical clipping is when the surgeon removes a section of the skull to locate an aneurysm and places a metal clip on the opening of an aneurysm to cut off blood flow. The endovascular coiling method was used for the remaining 2,725 cases, which involves inserting a catheter into the groin to reach an aneurysm, the hospital said.

A brain aneurysm is a bulge or ballooning in a blood vessel in the brain, often resembling the size of a small berry, due to wear and tear from a constant flow of blood.

Most brain aneurysms do not cause health problems, but in rare cases, they grow, leak or rupture becoming potentially life-threatening and causing other health complications. Around 30 percent of people who have a ruptured brain aneurysm get permanent disability, and about 40 percent die, the hospital said.

"Routine management of high blood pressure is necessary to prevent brain aneurysms from exploding. One should especially go to a nearby emergency room quickly when experiencing sudden, intolerably painful and severe headaches,” Professor Ahn said.

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