Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has performed deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery for treatment of pediatric dystonia while the patient rested under general anesthesia. Ellen Air, MD, neurosurgeon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, performed DBS electrode placement using ClearPoint Neuro Intervention System from MRI Interventions.
While the patient slept through surgery, Air used the ClearPoint system’s live MRI guidance to achieve accurate placement of DBS electrodes and to verify results of the procedure immediately upon completion.
DBS surgery is usually performed with the patient awake to provide feedback, which the surgeon uses to help guide electrode placement. However, young patients incapacitated by dystonia often do not make good candidates for the conventional awake surgery.
The ClearPoint surgical platform is the only technology to enable minimally-invasive neurosurgery under continuous MRI guidance, which provides superior visualization of the brain’s tissue compared to other imaging technologies and does not use radiation to obtain images, making it an ideal method for continuous visualization during surgery. The ability to keep the MRI machine running through an entire procedure without additional radiological risk to the patient means surgeons can rely on the ClearPoint system’s image guidance rather than an awake patient’s feedback.
Using the ClearPoint system, a surgeon sees and selects a neurological target, aims the ClearPoint targeting device and watches via MR-imaging as the surgical instrument, in this case, a DBS lead, is advanced to the target location inside the patient’s brain. The surgeon can then immediately confirm results of the procedure with MR imaging before removing the patient from the operating environment.
