Intracranial Aneurysm Group

Saccular intracranial aneurysm (sIA) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH)

Some 2% of population develops saccular intracranial aneurysms (sIAs) at the branching sites of major intracranial extracerebral arteries. Subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) due to rupture of the sIA wall is a devastating form of stroke that affects working-age population. The sIA disease is complex - it is not known how the acquired and inherited risk factors affect the formation of the sIA pouch and/or the rupture of the sIA wall. Such knowledge would facilitate the development of novel biological methods to identify carriers of the sIA disease and to prevent rupture of the sIA wall.
Our group studies the phenotype, longterm outcome, concomitant diseases, and genetics of sporadic and familial Finnish sIA disease as well as the biology of the sIA wall as a member of the Finnish Intracranial Aneurysm Research Consortium (www.fiarc.fi).

Our longterm goals are:

 
  • Development of blood tests to assess the risk of sIA disease, i.e., carrying unruptured sIAs.
  • Development of medical therapy to occlude unruptured sIA pouches.
  • Development of blood tests to assess the risk of carrying rupture-prone sIAs.
  • Development of intra-arterial gene therapy to prevent delayed ischemic events after acute aSAH. 

We function at the Clinical Research Centre (www.uef.fi/crc/ns), University of Eastern Finland, and at the Kuopio Intracranial Aneurysm Database, Neurosurgery of Neurocenter, Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland.

The present Eastern Finnish Kuopio sIA cohort (1980 – 2010) consists of NNNN sporadic (DNA = NNN) and NNN familial sIA patients (DNA = NNN).

The present Southern Finnish Helsinki sIA cohort for genetic studies consists of NNN sporadic (DNA = NNN) and NNN familial (DNA = NNN) sIA patients.

We have access to a very large Finnish genotyped and phenotyped control cohort.

We are highly interested in joining forces with European and other collaborators in sIA disease genetics and biology. Please contact juha.e.jaaskelainen (at) kuh.fi or +358 44 717 4660.

We heartily invite new researchers to our team.
Please email your CV and intentions to juha.e.jaaskelainen (at) kuh.fi.

Prognostic models for aSAH from ruptured sIA based on Kuopio Intracranial Aneurysm Database (not for clinical use)

  • aSAHmortality 1a

Calculator for individual risk of death after aSAH at any time until 12 months after aSAH (under construction).
Based on the cohort of 1657 consecutive patients admitted alive within 24 hours after aSAH to Kuopio University Hospital between 1980 and 2007 from a defined Eastern Finnish catchment population (Karamanakos P, to be submitted).

  • aSAHoutcome

Calculator for individual risk of neurological deficits after aSAH (under development). 

Selected publications on the Finnish sIA disease

  • Kurki M, et al. Upregulated signaling pathways in ruptured human saccular intracranial aneurysm wall: an emerging regulative role of Toll like receptor signaling and NF-kappaB, HIF1A and ETS transcription factors (submitted)
  • Huttunen T, el al. Long-term excess mortality of 244 familial and 1,502 sporadic one-year survivors of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage as compared to matched Eastern Finnish catchment population (submitted)
  • Huttunen T, et al. Saccular intracranial aneurysm disease: distribution of site, size, and age suggests different etiologies for aneurysm formation and rupture in 316 familial and 1454  sporadic eastern Finnish patients. Neurosurgery 2010
  • Yasuno K, et al. Genome-wide association study of intracranial aneurysm identifies three new risk loci. Nat Genet 2010
  • Bilguvar K, et al. Susceptibility loci for intracranial aneurysm in European and Japanese populations. Nat Genet 2008
  • Helgadottir A, et al. The same sequence variant on 9p21 associates with myocardial infarction, abdominal aortic aneurysm and intracranial aneurysm. Nat Genet 2008
  • Frosen J, et al. Growth factor receptor expression and remodelling of saccular cerebral artery aneurysm walls: implications for biological therapy preventing rupture. Neurosurgery 2006
  • Tulamo R, et al. Complement activation associates with saccular cerebral artery aneurysm wall degeneration and rupture. Neurosurgery 2006
  • Frosen J, et al. Remodelling of saccular cerebral artery aneurysm wall is associated with rupture: histological analysis of 24 unruptured and 42 ruptured cases. Stroke 2004
  • van der Voet M, et al. Intracranial aneurysms in Finnish families: confirmation of linkage and refinement of the interval to chromosome 19q13.3. Am J Hum Genet 2004
  • Ronkainen A, et al. Risk of harboring an unruptured intracranial aneurysm. Stroke 1998
  • Ronkainen A, et al. Familial intracranial aneurysms. Lancet 1997