New surgical technique uses laser energy to destroy brain tumors

Novel approach is minimally invasive and precise
04:20 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Wendy Rigby / KENS 5

Perez has had one surgery to remove the tumor, but now the cancer has returned. This time, Dr. John Floyd, a U.T. Health Science Center neurosurgeon, is trying something different.

In an operating room at St. Luke’s Baptist Hospital, the doctor secured an anchor in the outside of the skull. Then, using what’s called neuro-navigation for precision, he slid a catheter several inches inside the head. That catheter houses a laser that can zap the cells growing out of control and threatening Perez’ life.

After the catheter was in place, the patient was moved to an MRI suite, where real-time images showed the doctors the area they were treating.

“Now we have another surgical technique which is minimally invasive and excellent for recurrences,” Floyd said.

While the two-step procedure took several hours, the heating and killing of the tumor took less than five minutes.

“In fighting brain cancer and brain tumors, we need everything that’s available at our disposal to be able to win the battle,” commented Dr. David Jimenez, head of the neurosurgery department at UTHSC.

Full article and video at News5

Visualase will be holding a seminar for physicians interested in the Visualase technology. Neurosurgeons that have used Visualase will present case studies and will be available for QnA. Please RSVP if you like to attend. There is limited capacity for this event.

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Watching Tumors Die

Thursday, April 2, 2009
By Sarah Petrie

Above, from left: Kamran Ahrar, M.D., and R. Jason Stafford, Ph.D., discuss an upcoming spinal surgery that will use the Visualase technology. They’ll be able to watch the tumor fully die in near real time during the procedure. Depending on where the tumor is located, the patient may or may not be awake during the procedure.

History books show that surgeons began removing cancerous tumors as early as the second century. Zoom ahead to 2009, take away the scalpels, scars and side effects that typically accompany surgery, and trade them for a tiny laser beam that zaps cancer dead on the spot. It sounds like science fiction, but our researchers and clinicians are among the first in the nation to investigate a new procedure that does just this … and more.

“It’s called laser-induced thermal therapy, and the basic theory is that the laser heats the tumor to a certain temperature to kill it,” explains Jeffrey Weinberg, M.D., associate professor in Neurosurgery, who’s conducting a clinical trial to test the effectiveness of this procedure on patients with metastatic brain tumors.
How hot is too hot for a cancerous tumor? Sixty degrees Celsius, in most cases.

“The clinical trial targets patients with otherwise inoperable tumors or those for whom other treatments failed,” Weinberg says. “This is possible because tissues surrounding the tumor aren’t harmed or affected with this procedure — an advantage over other types of brain surgeries for cancer, including radiosurgery.”

Delivering laser energy using a device only millimeters in diameter, the procedure leaves a scar no bigger than your thumb. Plus, there should be no side effects for this less-invasive surgery, which takes only a few hours from start to finish. “The laser portion should only take a few minutes, and patients will experience no swelling and little pain,” Weinberg adds.

Other forms of what also is known as ablation therapy already are in practice, killing tumors using heat, cold or electricity. So what makes this particular procedure so revolutionary? The physician actually watches the tumor die in real time, according to Kamran Ahrar, M.D., associate professor in Interventional Radiology, who has performed the procedure on a few patients with bone and spinal tumors as part of a similar clinical trial.

Weinberg agrees this is the biggest advantage of this method over other forms of treatment. “Patients don’t have to wait weeks or months for tests to confirm if the entire tumor is gone, as is the case with most surgeries. Instead, using this technology, we can convert magnetic resonance imaging into a color picture that indicates the temperature of the tissue,” he says. “This allows us to know exactly when the tumor is hot enough to fully die.”

How does it work?

Houston-based company Visualase Inc., which sells the technology, approached M. D. Anderson in 2000 for help with developing the tool. “For this procedure to be successful, the doctors must know the precise location and distribution of temperature in the tumor and that’s where the physicists come in the picture,” explains R. Jason Stafford, Ph.D., assistant professor in Imaging Physics, and lead consultant on the Visualase technology development for M. D. Anderson.

In other words, a stereotactic navigation system, “like a GPS for your brain” as Weinberg puts it, pinpoints the exact location and size of the tumor. After the surgeon drills a hole and sends the specially designed fiber directly to the tumor, the laser is activated, thus heating the tumor. Doing it in the MRI allows clinicians to monitor temperatures within the tissue. “Temperature as well as predicted regions of complete treatment are color-coded on a screen, giving us the ability to adjust or retreat a certain area, as needed,” Stafford adds.

And at M. D. Anderson, this entire procedure can be performed in one room, unlike at other institutions that also are researching the procedure. We have a dedicated intra-operative MRI suite, which is safer for patients than moving them to different locations to complete the procedure.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Lasers used in keyhole surgery for brain cancer” – Agence France-Presse

Paris, France August 29th, 2008 – Visualase technology used to successfully treat brain tumors, as reported by AFP and the Telegraph (UK).

Read: AFP article | Telegraph article

Paris hospital hosts pioneering laser brain surgery

Saturday 30 August 2008 – A French team of neurosurgeons claims top have successfully tested a combination of new techniques, including fibre-optic lasers, in treating brain cancer through ultra-keyhole surgery.

Read: France24