Endovascular Treatment of AVMs in Glasgow

The Institute of Neurological Sciences (INS) at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow is the largest Neuroscience Centre in Scotland, and among the largest in the UK. The other 3 Scottish centres are Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh. Scotland itself has a population of approximately 5.2 million people and the INS in Glasgow provides neurointervention cover to almost 3 million of these. Referrals also come from the rest of Britain and overseas (North Africa, Middle-East and Asia). Glasgow has been nominated as one of two centres in the UK for management of neonatal high-flow fistulae, and has the largest experience in the UK for management of cervico-facial vascular malformations. There are 3 consultant interventional neuroradiologists (in addition to 6 purely diagnostic neuroradiologists) and two fellows (at least one of whom is training in neurointervention). Overseas trainees are sometimes accommodated, most recently from Greece and Thailand. Patients requiring interventional neuroradiology are usually admitted into the neurosurgery unit, although care is shared with the neuroradiologists. An AVM clinic is run jointly with neurosurgical colleagues, to which most (but not all) AVM patients are referred, and close links are maintained with the National Stereotactic Radiosurgery Centre in Sheffield (which has overwhelmingly, the largest experience in the UK for the radiosurgical treatment of AVMs). The Scottish Intracranial Vascular Malformations Study (SIVMS) is a collaborative epidemiological study between the four Scottish centres1,2,5.