New ‘imaging needle’ warns brain surgeons when they are about to cause fatal bleeds
Scientists have developed a 'smart needle' with a camera to make brain biopsies safer.
The device - as thin as a human hair - enables surgeons to avoid piercing blood vessels that could cause a life-threatening brain bleed.
Tests have found it can detect vessels with up to 98 percent accuracy by lighting up risky areas with infrared light.
A computer system then identifies the blood vessels and sends out an alarm to the surgeon.
The team, led by the University of Adelaide in Australia, says the new tool will 'revolutionize' surgery and could prevent hundreds of life-threatening complications, and even deaths.
Scientists have developed a 'smart needle' - as thin as a human hair - with a fiber-optic camera inside it that identifies blood vessels to avoid surgeons piercing it and causing a fatal bleed
A brain biopsy is a procedure that removes sample of abnormal tissue for examination. The cells taken can show if the tissue is benign or cancerous.
Needles are used to access tumors or lesions that are deeper in the brain.
After procuring a suspect piece of tissue, pathologists run a number of tests to determine whether or not the area of the brain is diseased - and what course of action should come next.
The process from start to finish takes about five to seven days.
Biopsies are a crucial part of the diagnostic process and quite safe, but when their done on an organ as delicate and difficult to access s the brain, even small complications can quickly become life-threatening.
Hemorrhage during surgery is associated with mortality rates of up to three percent.
'Brain biopsies are minimally invasive operations, but still [carry] the risk of damage to blood vessels that is potentially fatal,' said Dr Robert McLaughlin, chair of biophotonics at Adelaide Medical School.
First, surgeons insert the 'imaging needle' into the brain.
Next, a fiber-optic camera that's encased inside the needle shines infrared light on the brain tissue.
A computer system determines where blood vessels are within that tissue, which helps the surgeon avoid them.
The needle was just successfully tested in a trial involving 11 patients at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia.
'These patients were undergoing other types of neurosurgery and consented to allow us to safely test how well the imaging needle was able to detect blood vessels during surgery,' said Dr McLaughlin.
'This is the first reported use of such a probe in the human brain during live surgery - and is the first step in the long process required to bring new tools like this into clinical practice.'
He is hoping it could be in widespread clinical use within the next five years.
Trial leader Dr Christopher Lind, consultant neurosurgeon at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and the University of Western Australia, said the needle could be a tool that will 'revolutionize' neurosurgery.
'Bleeds are a risk in many types of neurosurgery. There is a great opportunity for new technologies like this to help us reduce those risks,' he said.
'To have a tool that can see blood vessels as we proceed through the brain would revolutionize neurosurgery. It will open the way for safer surgery - allowing us to do things we've not been able to do before.'
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