It was by accident that Carole Einhorn, a 62-year-old retired educator from Buffalo Grove, discovered she had an aneurysm.

Einhorn had gone to an ear, nose and throat doctor to address a hearing problem and incidentally found out she had an aneurysm when an MRI was done of her head.

She began the saga of reading and learning about different treatments ranging from opening up her head to non-invasive procedures. But it wasn’t until she met Dr. Victor Aletich, an endovascular neurosurgeon at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital, that she finally found her treatment.

“Dr. Aletich was so straightforward with me and he was methodical,” Einhorn said. “He wasn’t going to run and do something before he knew everything about my situation.”

Aletich offered Einhorn four different non-invasive procedures and left it up to her to decide. She went with the embolization using the Onyx Liquid Embolic System — which injects a liquid into the aneurysm to block blood flow into it and minimize the risk of rupture — because it would allow her to avoid putting a stent in her head.

The procedure went well and while she was a little sore, “it was no big deal.” Einhorn was back on the treadmill in four days.

She will return to Aletich in November, which will mark six months, and then she will be on aspirin for the rest of her life.

Hinsdale Adventist is one of about 25 hospitals in the country to perform this procedure as an alternative to surgery. Aletich said while this procedure has been in use in Europe for several years, it is just starting to be used here in the states because of the FDA clearing process. He performed his first two Onyx treatments at Hinsdale and has done a couple more at the University of Illinois.

He said his patients tolerated the material well and aneurysms have been completely obliterated.

Onyx provides an alternative treatment to coiling of an aneurysm — which uses platinum coils to promote clotting of the aneurysm. Aletich said the difference is coils, no matter how tightly they are packed together, are like a ball of yarn with spaces that allow blood to get back in, where the liquid Onyx is like a solid rubber ball that doesn’t leave room for any space.

Each patient is different, and each must decide with his or her doctor what the best option is, but this treatment is an especially nice alternative for those with large aneurysms as it can be cheaper in the long run and provide a better result, he said.

“I hope that the long-term outcomes show that the aneurysm is completely cured forever,” Aletich said. “That needs to be found out, we’re not 100 percent sure yet but hopefully Onyx will start to minimize long-term treatment failures.”