MRI Interventions and image-guided therapy developer IMRIS have combined their technologies to help children with dystonia.
Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, TX, is the first U.S. pediatric hospital to offer asleep deep brain stimulation surgery (DBS) to pediatric dystonia patients by using the combination of MRI Interventions' ClearPoint neuro intervention system and the IMRIS Visius surgical theater for real-time intraoperative MRI (iMRI) guidance and procedure visualization.
DBS is usually performed on awake patients so the surgeon can assess the placement of leads by observing the effect of stimulation in a brain area. This can be difficult for children, and children with dystonia have a lot of involuntary movement. Using ClearPoint and Visius iMRI technologies allows physicians to observe the surgical instruments and exact target location in the patient's brain throughout the operation in real-time, allowing patients to sleep through surgery and reducing the associated anxiety.
For neurosurgery, Visius iMRI at Cook brings high-field MRI to the patient inside the operating room on ceiling-mounted rails. The fully integrated suite allows the scanner to move between an operating room and a diagnostic room, providing on-demand access to MR images before, during, and after procedures without moving the patient, the companies said.
The ClearPoint platform enables minimally invasive neurosurgery under continuous MRI guidance. In addition to asleep DBS, the ClearPoint system has been used within a Visius surgical theater to facilitate focal laser ablation and direct drug delivery in the brain, according to the firms.
The first two pediatric asleep DBS procedures took place in early November.
