InSightec, maker of MRI-guided interventional ultrasound systems, received clearance in Europe for its ExAblate Neuro system to treat Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor and neuropathic pain. The system provides neurosurgeons the option of selectively destroying brain tissue without opening the skull or using ionizing radiation.
InSightec currently has approvals from the FDA to treat painful bone metastasis and uterine fibroids in the U.S. using its focused ultrasound technology.
More about the ExAblate Neuro from the product page:
The ExAblate device for treating neurosurgery applications consists of a unique “helmet” like apparatus consisting of thousands of individual ultrasound elements. Neurosurgery treatments using focused ultrasound technology present two unique challenges. First, the high ultrasound absorption in bone (as described in the section on bone metastases) results in an increase in bone temperature which may result in brain-tissue coagulation near the skull. As a result, chilled water is constantly circulated around the skull during the treatment. Secondly, the skull has a variable thickness and density which results in the ultrasound beam being defocused. CT images are used to reconstruct the skull, and this data is used to configure the ultrasound beams coming from the phased array transducer to be properly focused at the targeted lesion.
Potential benefits of using ExAblate
- Non-Invasive Transcranial treatment
- No ionizing radiation effects enables repeated treatments with no long term toxicity
- Thermal ablation provides immediate bio-physical tissue response
- Intraoperative image guidance allows for target localization with 1mm accuracy
Product page: ExAblate Neuro
Flashbacks: MRI Guided Focused Ultrasound Shows Promise for Essential Tremor Treatment; FDA Expands Indication for Insightec’s Uterine Fibroid System; ExAblate MR Guided Focused Ultrasound Approved in U.S. for Pain Treatment in Cancer Patients with Bone Metastases; The Current State and Future of Non-Invasve Surgery with MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound; MRI Guided Focused Ultrasound for Noninvasive Treatment of Prostate Cancer; Noninvasive Palliation of Pain of Bone Mets
(hat tip: MassDevice)