CCM, the Brain Disorder in 'Away,' Is Just as Scary in Real Life
A space thriller really only at its surface, Netflix’s Away launches well into all the soapy stratosphere of family, relationships, and medical drama—featuring just enough incurable disease and trips to the hospital to keep you worried for 10 hours. The major source of this dramatic stress is likely Matt’s (Josh Charles) brain disease—cerebral cavernous malformations (CCM)—which becomes the family drama fulcrum, turning daughter Lexi (Talitha Bateman) into an incarnation of her mother’s pedantry and Emma (Hilary Swank) into, like, the most questioned space commander in the history of spaceflight. (Relax, guys. Didn’t she train 20 years for this mission?)
The drama first unspools when Matt suffers a stroke. He’s brought to the hospital and awakes partially paralyzed. As there’s not a helpful chart in the background or a convenient exposition orderly to explain CCM, all we know from the series is that Matt has had this all his life, the disease disqualified him for spaceflight, and things have gotten worse.
What is CCM?
Cerebral cavernous malformations is a brain condition affecting an estimated 1 in 200 people. The “cavernous” refers to raspberry-shaped blood vessels—“caverns”—that form in the brain. The caverns (also “lesions”) can be as large as an inch and cause damage when they leak. Leakage can result in bleeding in the brain, seizures, and paralysis. The risk of these in patients with CCM is lifelong.
The University of Chicago Medical Center notes that the size of these lesions can change and that most patients with CCM don’t become symptomatic until they reach adulthood. (Some patients with CCM may never show symptoms.) CCM is sometimes discovered during unrelated brain imaging.
While medication can manage some CCM symptoms such as headaches and seizures, the disease does not yet have a cure. When lesions bleed, surgery may be necessary.
Is CCM genetic?
One of the many dramatic devices of the season is Lexi's own predisposition to CCM: will she develop the disease, and does she want to know? While some cases of CCM are not inherited, most are genetically passed down. Lexi is correct in worrying, as children of a parent with CCM have a 50 percent likelihood of inheriting the disease.
For more information on CCM, including resources and ways to support patients and research, visit Angioma Alliance.
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