The UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has confirmed the safety and efficacy of a platinum-based treatment for brain aneurysms.

Boston Scientific, which is behind the coil embolization or endovascular coiling procedure, welcomed the announcement.

A brain aneurysm is an abnormal weakening of an artery in the brain that can cause strokes by leaking oxygenated blood into areas around the brain.

Treatment of brain aneurysms using coil embolization involves insertion of a catheter into an artery in the patient's leg and navigating it through the vascular system, into the brain and into the aneurysm.

Tiny platinum coils are then threaded through the catheter and deployed into the aneurysm, blocking blood flow into the aneurysm and preventing rupture.

In contrast to surgical clipping, the traditional surgical treatment for aneurysms, endovascular coiling does not require open surgery.

Analyses have found that endovascular coiling is associated with lower risk of negative outcomes, shorter hospital stays and shorter recovery times, compared with surgery.

Anil Gholkar, consultant neuroradiologist at the Regional Neurosciences Centre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, also welcomed NICE's recommendations on endovascular coiling.

He said: "Coil embolization offers patients with a ruptured aneurysm a safer and less- invasive treatment with an improved chance of recovery for a condition that could easily be fatal."