Oh, gather round, folks, as we dive into the riveting world of fluorescein videoangiography (FL-VAG) in the high-stakes realm of vascular neurosurgery. Because, you know, when you’re tinkering with the human brain’s plumbing, a bit of glow-in-the-dark dye just makes everything better. Our intrepid researchers have been playing around with this nifty tool during bypass surgery and, hold your applause, they’ve come up with a groundbreaking classification method to judge if they’ve nailed it or not.

So, they took 26 brave souls (with a total of 50 cerebral bypasses between them from September 2018 to September 2022) and decided to see if their surgical handiwork was up to snuff. They introduced a grading system that sounds more like a traffic light party than a medical procedure. Grade 1 is the coveted “green T,” where everything’s flowing as smoothly as a lazy river. Grade 2 is the “not quite there” green T, and Grade 3 is essentially the party pooper where the green T is MIA.

Out of our 26 participants, the distribution of bypasses sounds like they were handing them out like candy: single, double, triple, and even a four-pack for the overachievers. Most of these bypasses were of the end-to-side variety, with a couple of fancy ones thrown in for good measure. And, because symmetry is overrated, they did a few more on the left side than the right.

Post-op, they were pretty chuffed to find that most bypasses were Grade 1, meaning the surgeons’ hands were steady on the day. A few were Grade 2 and Grade 3, but after a bit of a tweak and a re-check, most bypasses were living their best life as Grade 1s.

In conclusion, our heroes proclaim that using FL-VAG and their traffic light grading system is a reliable, safe, and low-risk way to ensure your brain’s new plumbing is up to code. And the best part? It’s available worldwide, because nothing says “global healthcare” like making sure everyone has access to glow-in-the-dark brain surgery assessments.