VIDEO: Small laser, big impact

No parent wants his or her child to have brain surgery, but for children with uncontrolled epilepsy or tumors deep inside the brain, surgery is often the best course of action. The Monteris NeuroBlate® System is a new tool at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, bringing hope to patients and families by decreasing the size of the incision and thus, minimizing recovery time.

“When you’re counseling families about doing a craniotomy versus a procedure like the Monteris NeuroBlate System, which may only require an overnight stay in the hospital, most people would choose the shorter procedure,” said Alexandra Beier, DO, a pediatric neurosurgeon with the UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville, and neurosurgical director of the Pediatric Surgical Epilepsy Program at Wolfson Children’s Hospital. “This is another tool that we and our colleagues at Baptist Health have in addition to more invasive surgical options.”

The NeuroBlate System requires only a small hole – about the diameter of a pencil – in the skull and operates with advanced precision to minimize damage to nearby healthy brain tissue. The surgeon, sitting at a nearby work station, guides a robotically controlled probe through the small hole in the skull. The probe delivers laser light energy to ablate, or heat and destroy, targeted tissue.

The procedure takes place in the intraoperative MRI (iMRI) machine, which is housed in the neurosurgical suite shared by Wolfson Children’s and Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville. The iMRI allows surgeons to get critical real-time information during the procedure.

WATCH video from a recent demonstration session:

For more information on surgical treatment options for epilepsy, brain tumors and other conditions of the brain and nervous system, call the Walter and Michelle Stys Neuroscience Institute at 904.633.0780.