<---"Brain Cloud"A 'puff of smoke'
---Telltale image saves a life and leads to an effort to help others with a rare brain disease---
The Wichita Eagle / Tue, Nov. 30, 2004
D.J. Johnson was 34 when the numbness began, intermittently at first....Then, in May 2001, his fingers went numb and stayed numb... Johnson, now 38, got lucky.
The image showed that his right internal carotid artery was small and got progressively narrower, ending in what looked like a cloud or puff of smoke.
Richard Berger, chief of interventional neuroradiology at Wesley, had seen that puff of smoke before, as part of his fellowship at Mayo Clinic, and knew that it was an indication of moyamoya disease.
Moyamoya is a rare, progressive disorder that affects about 1 in 2 million people in the United States. It was first described in the 1960s in Japan, where it affects about 1 in 1 million people.
Moyamoya means puff of smoke or cloud of smoke and describes the appearance of the tiny, fragile blood vessels that the body forms in an effort to continue supplying blood to the brain...more...
