At Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, neurosurgery is about to get more precise than it ever has been before. By March 2016, the hospital will have a new iMRI suite that will allow neurosurgeons to take detailed pictures of the brain while they are performing surgery.
This is a step beyond current practice, where an MRI is taken before surgery and mapped to the patient’s anatomy using a computer guidance system.
“The problem is, as soon as you open the skull, the brain shifts a lot so the map is out of date,” said Nathan Selden, MD, PhD, chair of Pediatric Neurosurgery and director of OHSU’s Neurological Surgery Residency Program, in an interview with the Portland Business Journal.
“This ‘3 Tesla’ power iMRI will allow me and the other pediatric neurosurgeons at Doernbecher to more safely and completely remove even more difficult brain tumors and epilepsy lesions in children than ever before, as well as improve treatment for cysts, vascular malformations and many other disorders.”
Nathan Selden, MD, PhD, chair of Pediatric Neurosurgery and director of OHSU’s Neurological Surgery Residency Program
By re-photographing the brain during surgery, it allows the map to update and the surgeon to be more precise. “It could be a centimeter, but it could make all the difference between life and death, paralysis or not or getting all the tumor out or not,” Selden said.
“This ‘3 Tesla’ power iMRI will allow me and the other pediatric neurosurgeons at Doernbecher to more safely and completely remove even more difficult brain tumors and epilepsy lesions in children than ever before, as well as improve treatment for cysts, vascular malformations and many other disorders,” said Selden.
Doernbecher will be the first children’s hospital in Oregon with the iMRI suite, and one of a few pediatric facilities in the world with this technology. The suite was partially funded by philanthropic investment to ensure that Doernbecher can continue to provide the highest quality care.
Read the full story on Portland Business Journal. You can also learn more about how the iMRI suite is advancing neurosurgery at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital on the OHSU blog.
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