Matthew Neal was at home in Tamms, IL, preparing to report for work at an area mall. Although he hadn’t felt well the day before, Neal didn’t want to miss a day on the job. “When I stood up, the left side of my body went limp,” he says. “I had no motor control on that side, and just fell to the floor.”

Neal’s girlfriend Tonya quickly called 911. “At first, the paramedics thought I had low blood sugar,” he says. After arriving at Southeast Missouri Hospital’s Regional Brain and Spine Center, further evaluations showed that Neal, 24, had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a defect of the circulatory system that is generally believed to develop before or soon after birth.

After several months of restricted activities, Matthew Neal is happy to once again be spending some free time enjoying one of his favorite sports, fishing at Horseshoe Lake.

  Cape Girardeau neurosurgeon Scott R. Gibbs, M.D., of the Brain and Neurospine Clinic of Missouri, explains that the most serious potential danger posed by AVMs is hemorrhage.

About one out of a thousand people experience an AVM hemorrhage, though many more individuals have AVMs but experience few, if any, symptoms. “Some patients present with a seizure or neuro deficit, but most are asymptomatic until they hemorrhage.,” Gibbs says. “About seven percent of AVMs are associated with an aneurysm.”

“Matthew had suffered a large hemorrhage,” Gibbs adds. “He was quite impaired when he first arrived at the hospital.” Luckily, after a week’s stay at Southeast, first in ICU and then on the hospital’s Neuro unit, Neal went home. “He was lucky this time,” Gibbs adds. “He made a complete recovery, with no detectable deficits.”

But It’s Still There

Still, a decision had to be made about follow-up treatment to hopefully eliminate Neal’s AVM.

Neal’s AVM was inoperable, Gibbs explains, because of its location deep within his brain. After consulting with a fellow neurosurgeon at Phoenix’s Barrow Neurological Institute, the decision was made to obliterate the AVM using state-of-the-art stereotactic radiosurgery available at Southeast’s Novalis® Shaped Beam Surgery Center.

Joseph P. Miller, M.D., medical director of Radiation Oncology at Southeast’s Regional Cancer Center, says although the Novalis system particularly well suited for treating certain cancers, Novalis also may be appropriate for patients with other conditions such as trigeminal neuralgia and AVM.

Using Novalis, “we hope to scar the lesion so that it will eventually damage the blood vessel to keep Matthew from bleeding in the future,” he explains.

Neal successfully underwent a single Novalis procedure to eliminate his AVM in August. “Ideally, the Novalis procedure will obliterate the AVM. But the radiation exerts its shrinking effect over a period of two to three years,” Gibbs says.

Happy to be back to a normal activity level, Neal says that although experiencing a intracranial bleed was “scary,” he is grateful for the care he received at Southeast. His mom, Cassandra Neal, adds that “everyone was so considerate and caring. After Matt was released from Southeast, a nurse from the Neuro Unit called to see how he was doing. We really appreciated that.”

Neal adds, “I sure am glad for that machine, Novalis.”

Find Hope

Novalis may be right for you or someone you love. Call Southeast’s Novalis® Shaped Beam SurgeryTM Center, one of just 50 worldwide, at (573) 331-6375 or 800-231-3874.