At Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside, lasers are getting used to deal with mind tumors and epilepsy. The approach additionally permits for deep-brain stimulation procedures to deal with tremors.
Dr. Aristotelis Filippidis, who heads the hospital’s mind tumor program, has been treating tumors deep contained in the mind utilizing laser interstitial thermal remedy (LITT).
The know-how, which Filippidis began utilizing a few yr in the past, permits him to position a laser close to a tumor and use it to stimulate the physique’s immune response system to assault the tumor.
For the process, he makes use of medical robotic gear to make a precise placement of the laser.
It is a extra exact and fewer invasive methodology than earlier strategies. Earlier than lasers, a portion of the cranium could be eliminated to permit entry to tumors nearer to the outer floor of the mind. These deeper within the middle had been extra harmful to take away.
Dr. Aristotelis Filippidi
“It’s all about actual property, proper? I can attain any a part of the mind, as deep as I would like, however you must justify the price of the actual property that you simply undergo,” Filippidis mentioned. “So with the laser, it’s such as you don’t have that difficulty.”
A lot of the work begins earlier than the day of surgical procedure. MRI scans permit Filippidis to plan the operation, informing him precisely the place to make the lower than 4 millimeter incision to permit entry to the mind.
Ideally for the operation, a tumor could be about 3.5 centimeters, Filippidis mentioned. Bigger tumors could necessitate a couple of incision to permit the laser to deal with extra floor space.
“There’s some proof that it really works like an inner vaccine. After we burn the tumor, the antigens of the tumor are introduced to the immune system of the mind, and the mind assaults it,” Filippidis mentioned.
This may be adopted up with radiation or chemotherapy therapy if the tumor is cancerous.
These with epilepsy will be handled by LITT as effectively. Sufferers who’re on two or extra epilepsy medicines however are nonetheless having seizures are candidates for the therapy.
Laser interstitial thermal remedy permits surgeons to go deep into the mind to dissolve tumors that may have been inoperable in years previous.
Lasers burn the realm of the mind that trigger seizures. Filippidis mentioned the tactic can drastically cut back the quantity and severity of the seizure occasions or can depart the affected person freed from them altogether.
Conventional mind surgical procedure concerned the affected person being in intensive take care of every week. In some instances, sufferers had been positioned in a medically induced coma.
The LITT operation can take as little as half-hour. Many instances, Filippidis mentioned, the affected person goes dwelling the day after the process.
“How do I really feel the day of surgical procedure? Calm. That is what neurosurgeons do. They don’t put together the day of surgical procedure, we now have our plans. Now we have nice backup plans. The day of surgical procedure, we simply execute the plan,” he mentioned
As an alternative of getting to take away a part of the cranium to do mind surgical procedure, surgeons want a small entry incision to make use of a laser to deal with the mind.
Filippidis skilled at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Middle in Boston and Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. Barrow is the top-ranked neurosurgical institute on the earth, Filippidis mentioned.
In growing the mind tumor program, Ascension St. Vincent’s offered Filippidis with the gear on which he had skilled on at Barrow.
“Mind surgical procedure is used as a phrase to say that’s one thing extraordinarily tough. Now I can’t use it. I can now say ‘rocket science’ for me,” Filippidis mentioned.