The London Health Sciences Centre’s University Hospital has successfully completed the first Canadian robot-assisted deep brain stimulation surgery to assist in treating epilepsy.
The surgery involves placing electrodes in the brain that are connected to a pacemaker, similar to what is more commonly used on hearts, which provides stimulation to alter brain activity enough to prevent or limit seizures.
“The robot allows accurate, individualized trajectories and can quickly move between electrode implants with minimal manual intervention,” said Dr. Jonathan Lau, a neurosurgeon with the LHSC and Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery with Western University.
“This is a significant development that provides a new option using a surgical robot for accurately placing brain pacemaker electrodes across a wide range of neurological disorders.”
Epilepsy, which the surgery works to aid, is characterized by recurrent seizures, which are brief episodes of involuntary movement that may involve a part of the body or the entire body and are sometimes accompanied by loss of consciousness.
Lau and the LHSC have now successfully completed three surgeries using the robot since January, adding that robotic-based surgeries such as this allow for even further reduced risks on patients undergoing the surgeries.
“One of the main advantages of the robot is it removes a potential for some degrees of human error,” says Lau.
“This is particularly important as we embraced this technology in 2017, but we’re implanting 5 to 15 or 20 electrodes in the brain to figure out where the seizures are coming from.”
With the development in robotic-based surgeries being so new, particularly in Canada, Lau adds that the results being seen from the surgeries and process so far are promising.
“It does take time for us to ramp and and look at the long-term results,” says Lau.
“But we certainly know from a safety perspective and a targeting perspective that everything’s been going exactly the same as how it would with traditional technologies for implantation.”
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in the world and affects an estimated 300-thousand Canadians.
“By the time we see them, the seizures, or the fact that they might have a seizure, gets in the way of their everyday life,” says Dr. David Steven, a neurosurgeon at University Hospital and Chair of the Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University.
“Additional medications or changing medications rarely is successful. For some patients, this is an extremely effective treatment and reduces their seizures by a very significant amount.”
Steven goes on to talk about how this form of surgery is now a new option for those who previously weren’t considered candidates.
He goes on to say that the main focus for himself, Lau, the LHSC, and University Hospital on any developments such as this are to help as many people as possible.
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