New Professor of Open and Endovascular Neurosurgery at Radboudumc/Radboud University: Jeroen Boogaarts

2023-06-02 07:59:13

June 2, 2023

Jeroen Boogaarts has been appointed professor of Open and Endovascular Neurosurgery at Radboudumc/Radboud University. His research focuses on different treatments for a specific form of cerebral hemorrhage, the aneurysm. On Friday 2 June he will give his inaugural address at Radboud University.

Jeroen Boogaarts, neurosurgeon at Radboud university medical center, operates on patients with various types of cerebral haemorrhages. He specializes in the treatment of aneurysms. An aneurysm is a weak spot in an artery. The wall of the blood vessel is thinner here, causing a bulge. This can eventually rupture, resulting in bleeding between the skull and brain, a subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Boogaarts: ‘In the past, we generally treated aneurysms with open surgery, where we opened the skull to close off the aneurysm. But in the last decade there has been a shift towards endovascular surgery. With this treatment, the patient is given a catheter through the groin or wrist and an aneurysm is closed off in this way.’ Boogaarts, like three of his colleagues, performs both types of surgery, which does not happen often. It makes him a doctor who can treat a patient with aneurysm in different ways.

Surgery via groin or wrist

The advantage of an endovascular procedure is that it is less stressful for patients, explains Boogaarts. ‘With a catheterization, the skull does not have to be opened.’ Treatment via catheterization can be done in two ways. First of all, with the help of threads, so-called coils, which are brought to the aneurysm via the groin, and which jointly close off the aneurysm. A second way via the catheter is with a kind of umbrella that is unfolded in the right place and thus closes off the aneurysm. This is how the blood clots.

Boogaarts is researching these interventions: ‘What we don’t really know is how sustainable the treatment of new techniques that are performed via catheterisation are. In an open procedure, we place a kind of clip on the aneurysm. Then it usually remains closed. But with a procedure through the groin, we see in a small percentage that the aneurysm will fill again after some time. These patients must then be treated again. If that happens every three years, so to speak, that is also extremely stressful.’

It has not been sufficiently established whether this is a good alternative for the latest techniques. That is why Boogaarts will be mapping out the results of these techniques in the Netherlands in the coming years. ‘This registration will hopefully serve as a basis for a clinical study in which we can compare which intervention is best for which patient and which aneurysm.’

Delayed damage

The second part of his research focuses on delayed damage that occurs in some patients about a week after surgery. Boogaarts: ‘It happens that patients come in reasonably well, but after a week or so they deteriorate. We don’t really understand how this can happen, so we don’t have a way to prevent it. That is extremely frustrating.’ It is suspected that substances that are harmful to the brain are released during the breakdown of the blood from the aneurysm. Boogaarts wants to find out whether medication can counteract these processes.

Boogaarts praises the collaboration with his colleagues both at Radboudumc, in the neurology and radiology departments, and beyond. ‘Especially with Maastricht UMC+ there is a strong collaboration within the Academic Alliance. We want to further strengthen this, it is good that we use each other’s expertise.’

Career

Jeroen Boogaarts studied Medicine at Utrecht University. Since 2001 he has been affiliated with Radboudumc, where he specialized in neurosurgery. He also obtained a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology from NIHES. He obtained his PhD in 2016 on research into the quality of care for the aneurysm (title of thesis: Quality of Care for Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage; From theoretical considerations to practical implementations). Since 2019 he has been chairman of the Foundation for the Promotion of Neurosurgery Quality and chairman of the Dutch Neurovascular Society.

Jeroen Boogaarts has been appointed professor of “Open and endovascular neurosurgery” for five years as of July 1, 2022. On Friday, June 2 at 3:45 p.m. he will hold his inaugural speech “Step by step better”. Prior to the inaugural lecture, the symposium “Treatment challenges & future innovations in neurovascular diseases” will be held that day with various national and international speakers.