On Wednesday, Oct. 25, at 1:00 p.m. EDT, neurosurgeons at Children's Hospital Boston will remove a brain tumor employing functional mapping of the cortex on a 13-year-old pediatric patient during a live Webcast. Children's hosts three to four Webcasts annually to showcase its pioneering care and technology to specialists and referring physicians around the world, and to educate consumers on the latest and most innovative medical treatments available.
The Webcast will feature Children's intraoperative MRI system, known as the MR-OR, the first and only system of its kind at a pediatric hospital in the country. Developed by IMRIS, the iSPACE surgical imaging suite captures digital images through a unique, ceiling-mounted, movable MRI scanner that can be used to take high-resolution, real-time patient scans before, during and after a surgical procedure. This advanced technology allows surgeons to determine the extent of a tumor while the patient is undergoing surgery to ensure its accurate removal.
"Unlike other intraoperative MR machines, the mobile MRI lets surgeons use their usual metal surgical tools because the unit is moved into the shielded garage when surgeons are operating," says Joseph R. Madsen, MD, a neurosurgeon in the Department of Neurosurgery at Children's Hospital Boston and associate professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Madsen will operate on a patient with oligodendroglioma, a low-grade tumor arising from glial cells in the central nervous system. The tumor lies near motor and sensory areas of the brain, which will require electrocorticography and physiological tests to map the normal brain around the tumor before the surgery. Once the mapping has been completed, Dr. Madsen will then perform a microsurgical resection of the tumor.
Brain tumors are the most common solid tumors in children--approximately 1,800 are diagnosed in the United States each year. Today, more than half of all ch
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Contact: Jamie Newton
james.newton@childrens.harvard.edu
617-355-6420
Children's Hospital Boston
16-Oct-2006