There is help for children in Utah and throughout the Intermountain West who suffer from seizures or have brain tumors. Neurosurgeons at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital https://intermountainhealthcare.org are using a specialized intraoperative iMRI to see deep inside the brain during surgeries.
In the past, pediatric neurosurgeons could use an iMRI at an adult hospital to perform these surgeries, but systems didn’t always fit a child’s needs. Therefore physicians had to be selective as to which patients are eligible to get the iMRI-aided procedure.
The surgeons are trying to help children with severe seizures and to protect healthy brain tissue when removing tumors. Primary Children’s is the only pediatric hospital in the Intermountain West using an Intraoperative MRI (iMRI) to enable surgeons to scan a patient’s brain and make needed adjustments in the middle of surgery.
The iMRI system is the first in the nation to use a special coil to dramatically enhance images and is smaller and specifically designed for children and their developing brains. iMRI-assisted surgeries also can be less invasive for children, which helps to reduce risks.
Samuel Cheshier, MD, Neurosurgeon, University of Utah Health https://healthcare.utah.edu and Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, uses iMRI for nearly every surgery to remove brain tumors. It helps the neurosurgeon remove tumors with greater precision and leaves more healthy brain tissue untouched, which is critical to a growing child and their future development.
iMRI-assisted neurosurgery was beneficial for an 11 year who was Dr. Cheshier’s first patient to benefit from the new system. In October 2021, the patient was airlifted from a hospital in Idaho Falls to Primary Children’s after doctors discovered a tumor on the back of her brainstem was causing serious issues. Primary Children’s physicians are still monitoring the patient closely. So far, scans have shown no signs of the tumor after surgery.
Dr. Robert Bollo, Neurosurgeon at the University of Utah Health and Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital reports they are using real time brain scans to safely treat overactive neurons in patients with seizures.
Dr. Bollo and his team use a robot to insert a laser deep into the brain where the neurons trigger seizure episodes. Once in place, the patient is moved to the iMRI machine, where the surgeon can see in real time the active parts of the brain where the laser is working. The heat removes some neutrons which leads to fewer seizures and doctors use the iMRI to precisely move the laser to other areas of the brain.
“It’s still incredible to think that I can get iMRI scans in real time while I’m operating on someone’s brain”, said Dr. Bollo. “It’s changing the way we help our patients and we are able to get better results.”