This translation has been automatically generated and has not been verified for accuracy.The team at the University Health Network guided a robot Friday to place a stent and 14 coils deep inside the brain of a 64-year-old woman to treat an aneurysm.
“This is important because the robotic system brings a lot of precision and control to these procedures,” said Vitor Pereira, a neurosurgeon and neuroradiologist with the Krembil Brain Institute at Toronto Western Hospital. “It opens the door to do remote procedures … in communities [where] they don’t have this type of treatment and don’t have the personnel to perform these procedures too.
“Rather than bringing the patient to the physician … we are having now the opportunity with this robot to bring the physician’s expertise to the patient,” said Dr. Krings, head of the department of neuroradiology. In an aneurysm, the weakened wall of the blood vessel forms a blister, which may rupture, Dr. Pereira said. In the case of this patient, the aneurysm was detected a couple of weeks earlier through magnetic resonance imaging, after she saw a neurologist for her headaches.The coils prevent blood flow to the aneurysm, and over time a new layer of cells reconstructs the vessel without an aneurysm, Dr. Pereira said.