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August 29, 2001
Brain Surgery
by Robots
A robot has been developed
that can perform brain surgery that was not possible till now. It is supposed
to perform so accurately and in areas where human hand till now was
not considered absolutely safe.
The PathFinder
neurosurgery robot, to be launched soon, operates so accurately that
its developers claim it will do complex brain operations under local anesthetic,
with patients discharged from the hospital the next day with no more
that a plaster on their head.
The robot is guided by
extremely high resolution brain scans, allowing it to work to an
accuracy of a millimeter, marking it possible to operate close to
vital parts of the brain. In contrast, neurosurgeon operating by hand
have an accuracy of only a couple of millimeters and have to avoid
various operations in case they cause permanent and possibly fatal
damage. There are large areas in the brain that the surgeons are
unable to operate upon.
The PathFinder has
been produced by Armstrong Healthcare, London. Costs about US $
200,000.
This robot operates
through a hole in the skull 3 mm across. The robot head needs a path
through the brain only 1 mm wide. Tests suggest that the robot will be
able to remove a tumour in about half an hour but more complex operations
may take several hours, but unlike human surgeon the robot doesn't get
tired. With little damage to the skull and the brain the patients
should be able to leave the hospital in 24 hours.
One of the main applications
will be in the treatment of Parkinson's
disease. An electrode delivering a current to precisely
the right pat of the brain can stop the debilitating tremors caused by
the disease. However, the surgeons hardly ever perform such operations
because, if they place the electrode a mere 2mm off the target, it can
cause permanent paralysis. Theoretically, this robot may make
the treatment of Parkinson's disease almost routine.
This robot can also be
used to place tiny radioactive pellets inside a tumour to kill it.
Blood clots in the brain can be removed. May be this robot may be used
to inject stem cells very accurately into the brain to treat
diseases like Alzheimer's.
It may be just a beginning.
The uses of such a robot may be numerous.
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July 04, 2002
The first medical robot designed
to operate on the brain has begun clinical trials at Queen's
Medical Centre in Nottingham, UK. The robot could be used to
take biopsies of brain tumours or implant electrodes to
control Parkinson's disease. PathFinder, will not be able to
do operations that are not already possible, but it could do
them much faster and more accurately, says Patrick Finlay of
Armstrong Healthcare in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire |
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