Moyamoya Disease Program

Who we are

Children’s Hospital Boston has a long and distinguished history of caring for children with complex diseases and disorders of the brain, spine and central nervous system. Our Department of Neurosurgery is regarded as an international leader in understanding and treating pediatric Moyamoya disease, a rare, life-threatening condition that causes a slowing of the blood flow to the brain.

The only treatment for Moyamoya disease that’s proven to be effective in the long-term is surgery. Children's has pioneered a procedure that directly applies a healthy artery onto the affected area of a patient's brain. In 1985, R. Michael Scott, MD, Children's Neurosurgeon-in-Chief, performed the first of these operations, a procedure known as pial synangiosis—which he developed—on a child with Moyamoya disease. Over the past 25 years, he and colleague Edward Smith, MD, have used pial synangiosis to treat more than 400 children with Moyamoya.

Caring for children and young adults

Here at Children's, we treat patients of various ages; while the average age at which a child is diagnosed with Moyamoya is 7, children of all ages can develop the disease, as can adults. Some children with Moyamoya are also living with other medical conditions, like Down syndrome, sickle cell disease and neurofibromatosis, and our clinicians work closely with specialists throughout the hospital to deliver comprehensive, multidisciplinary care.