They say that you can fix anything with duct tape. It’s the redneck’s toolbox. Got a broken window? Duct tape will fix it right up. Got a tear in your raincoat? Duct tape. If you wrap it a few times around your bumper, you can even tow your car with it.
Another handy item to have around the house is a tube of super glue. You can repair anything from a broken coffee mug to anything that Elmer’s isn’t strong enough to hold together. Remember that television commercial for the original product where the guy sticks his helmet with super glue onto a steel beam and it holds all of his weight?
Recently, doctors and surgeons have been using a medical grade super glue in place of stitches. I recently had a benign lump removed from my chest and the doctor glued the skin together with super glue instead of stitching it. After a few weeks the glue dissolves and it’s all healed.
But now there is another surprising use for medical grade super glue: you can use it to fix the brain.
According to CNN: “Super glue: It’s good for mending shoe insoles and drawer handles, but how about the human body?”
Evidently the glue can be used to fix “Vein of Galen Malformation.” Galen is called the “father of modern medicine.” I’m not sure what the state of Galen’s veins was but there is a large vein in the brain that is named after him and sometimes this vein is malformed in newborns and can cause problems.
In Vein of Galen Malformation, capillaries in that particular area of the brain that normally slow the blood flow down and allow the brain to absorb the oxygen from it are not there. Blood then flows directly from the arteries into the large Vein of Galen without doing any good.
A tube is inserted with the super glue and it short circuits the connection between the vein and the artery. The condition is most often seen in newborns and infants and so far about 250 of them have been treated successfully.
The condition is often diagnosed in newborns when the rush of blood back to the heart causes congestive heart failure. If the cerebrospinal fluid also backs up in the brain it can result in hydrocephalus, a serious birth defect that can result in severe mental retardation.
It may take several treatments to successfully block off the blood flow, but if the operations work, the patients can go on and lead normal lives. Now if they can only figure out a use for all that leftover plumber’s putty that I have in the kitchen drawer. .
Source: http://www.childrenshospital.org/clinicalservices/Site2162/mainpageS2162P16.html
TEDMED: Fixing the brain with super glue