Get our your datebooks: Says here that on November 30 at 3 p.m., neurosurgeons at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas will perform--during a live webcast, no less--a brain tumor resection in the hospital's new BrainSUITE, which is only one of seven such operating rooms in the world. And what is a BrainSUITE, you ask? Well, of course, around here that's how we refer to Jim Schutze's office, but says here it's a neurosurgical operating room "that fully integrates all the surgical and diagnostic tools, including iMRI, necessary to treat complicated neurosurgical cases." In short, it gives docs every single bit of info imaginable about the brain being operated on, which not only allows for more accuracy during the operation, which has to be a good thing (look, I am no doctor), but also reduces the possibility that more surgeries will be needed.
As it turns out, yesterday neurosurgeons at Presbyterian actually performed the very first surgery in the States using the BrainSUITE technology. That's according to today's issue of Medical Imaging Week, which is on my reading list just behind Highlights. The journal reports that on Sunday, J. Michael Desaloms, M.D., operated on a 31-year-old mother of three who was "was treated for a cavernous angioma, a rare disorder of the capillaries and smallest veins, which was located in one part of her brain." Expect the November 30 surgery to be on YouTube shortly after its completion. Can't wait. --Robert Wilonsky
