New remote robotic brain surgery could revolutionize aneurysm, stroke treatment

Doctors at a Toronto hospital have performed what they’re calling the world’s first neurovascular surgery using robotics, a procedure that could open the door to heightened levels of precision and improved care for patients in remote communities. The procedure was performed on Nov. 1 at Toronto Western Hospital to treat a patient who suffered a major aneurysm, a potentially lethal bulge of a blood vessel in the brain.

The complex operation to remove the aneurysm was performed via a remote-controlled robotic arm, which helped the surgeons guide a catheter to the patient’s brain from a single incision made near the groin. The robotic device allows surgeons to make “submillimetric” adjustments during the complex operation, in which a catheter ultimately deploys a web of metallic coils at the site of an aneurysm, effectively choking it off from the rest of the brain. X-ray images provide a real time road map during the surgery.

“This machine can do what we do with four hands,” said Dr. Vitor Mendes Pereira, who controlled the robot during the operation. “Robotics has been used in other areas of medicine, but never in this domain,” added Dr. Pereira, a neurosurgeon and neuroradiologist at the Krembil Brain Institute at Toronto Western Hospital. While this procedure may be a first, Canadian doctors have been using robotics to perform brain surgeries since 2008, and the field is advancing rapidly.

Patients can be discharged on same day as procedure. In addition to aneurysms, the procedure done at Western can also be used to resolve ischemic strokes, which similarly block blood flow to the brain. In both cases, the non-invasive surgery does not require the opening of the skull, and patients can sometimes be discharged on the same day the procedure is performed. The patient in the groundbreaking surgery is now recovering, the hospital said. It isn’t releasing her identity due to privacy concerns.

Continue Reading This Article By Nick Boisvert · CBC News · Posted: Nov 06, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: November 7