IMRIS and MRI Interventions announced that a surgical team at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth, Texas, USA has performed the first paediatric laser ablation procedure in an IMRIS Visius surgical theatre combining the use of MRI Interventions’ ClearPoint neuro intervention system as the navigation platform and Visius intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI). The combination of these two medical technologies provided continuous real-time visualisation and guidance throughout a neurosurgical intervention to treat a brain tumour.
“This initial operation went very well,” says John Honeycutt, medical director of the Cook Children’s Department of Neurosurgery, who led the operation. “Access to real-time intraoperative imaging and guidance with Visius and ClearPoint technologies together allowed accurate placement of the laser catheter for thermal ablation of the tumour. Since this tumour was small, deep, and next to critical structures, having ClearPoint to assure accuracy was critical to successful ablation of the tumour with no side effects or complications. The Visius iMRI allows us to do the complete procedure in a proper operating room.”
The ClearPoint navigation platform is the only technology that enables minimally-invasive neurosurgery under continuous MR guidance, offering surgeons real-time direction and a direct view of the inside of a patient’s brain during a procedure.
The Visius surgical theatre allows use of MR in the operating room and over the operating room table.
Using the ClearPoint system with Visius iMRI, Honeycutt was able to see and select the tumour in the brain, establish a safe trajectory, and visualise the laser probe on MR images as it was inserted to the target location. He was then able to utilise real-time MR thermometry to monitor progress as the laser probe heated the target area to the desired temperature for therapeutic destruction of the tumour tissue, preserving surrounding healthy tissue in the process. Finally, Honeycutt was able to confirm results of the procedure using the iMRI before the patient was moved from the operating table.
In addition to focal laser ablation, the ClearPoint system has been used within the Visius Surgical Theatre at Cook Children’s to facilitate “asleep” deep brain stimulator electrode placement for relief of symptoms related to paediatric dystonia.
IMRIS and MRI Interventions technologies also have been utilised jointly at other US neuroscience centres to facilitate asleep deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease, focal laser ablation to treat brain cancer and delivery of investigational therapeutic agents directly into brain tumours.
