So after the endothelial cells close off the aneurysm, does the aneurysm eventually slough off, or does it stay there indefinitely, isolated into harmless existence? I'm guessing that it gets sloughed off because the blood supply is cut off, but I'm not really qualified to offer a definitive response because I never finished medical school. My teachers said my duct tape bowel resections were an abomination, but they could never appreciate genius.

The clot organizes (solidifies and contracts) but the aneurysm remains a bud extending from the vessel wall. After coiling, the aneurysm is easily seen on a regular X-ray (which doesn't ordinarily show blood vessels at all) by the little ball of coils.

What is really neat about these procedures is how the interventional radiologists can manipulate those little guidewires up through all the twists and turns and into an aneurysm. They squirt some radio-opaque dye into the cerebral circulation and take an X-ray to see the vessels (angiogram). This image is stored and serves as a "roadmap" to where they need to go. Deploying coils into a broad necked aneurysm can be a little disconcerting. If the coil pops out of the aneurysm prematurely, it will flow downstream into the cerebral vessel, occlude it, and probably result in a stroke. That's why some aneurysms still have to be surgically clipped. Sometimes the structure of the aneurysm is just not right or safe for deployment of coils.

^That makes sense. I failed to take into account that you wouldn't want a tiny little coil bouncing around loose in the brain if the aneurysm bud did slough off. Is there any danger of the aneurysm bud dying, thus risking the scenario I just described?

Pretty soon, we'll have nanochips and robots performing these delicate procedures by programmed design, as if the blood cells weren't remarkable enough, we'll have even tinier cells performing multitude of tasks intravenously.

As long as the coils remain outside the blood vessel proper, nothing bad will come of them. Trance is right, at some point in the future we will see nanotech that allows things we never could have imagined.

*brain

Adding video to channels (Brain) - requested by jonny.

I have had coiling done six weeks ago, went yeasterday, and the coiling did not seal up. Has anyone experience this before? And what did they do. Desperlly Mary.