‘Game changer’: Portable MRI transforms brain surgery at LHSC

The team at London Health Sciences Centre is the first in the world to use portable brain MRI machine to remove a tumour - CTV's Sean Irvine reports.

A neurosurgeon is calling the arrival of a portable MRI machine at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) a ‘game-changing’ innovation.

He believes the device could soon be used to offer scans at the bedsides of intensive care patients.

But for now, the machine is making a difference in neurosurgery, for patients like Dave Evans.

Last year, the Owen Sound, Ont., resident discovered why his vision had been fading.

For several years, he had blamed it on aging and tiredness.

“Best analogy I have is that you have a TV set, and it diminishes by one per cent a month, you know, over the course of a couple of years, it’s significant, but you don’t notice any immediate changes,” he said.

But Evans’ doctor wondered if something more was amiss.

“He did further testing, which brought to light the pituitary growth,” he recalled.

Evans was told he had a slow-growing tumour that would require delicate brain surgery.

His assigned LHSC neurosurgeon knew it would be a challenge.

Dr. Neil Duggal and his team were tasked with removing the core of a tumour the size of the average human thumbnail from Evans’ head.

Duggal likens the procedure to draining an eggshell.

“But we don’t want to violate the boundaries of the eggshell, because on both sides, the carotid arteries are there,” he said. “And then on the top are the nerves that transmit information from the eyes to the back of the brain.”

And that’s where the newly acquired portable MRI came into play. It offers Duggal’s team an immediate review of their work and lets them know if they missed any part of a tumour.

“Have we gotten what we had intended to get, and is there any residual that we can get easily and safely before we close?”

Evans was one of the first patients to see the benefit. The MRI picked up a small amount of Evans’ tumour that the surgeons had not seen. They were then able to go back in — immediately — to remove it.

“Eliminating a potential repeat surgery, I think that’s a game changer!” exclaimed Duggal.

Evans tells CTV News London he experienced gratitude for the health team and the Hyperfine Swoop Brain Portable MRI system mere moments after waking up in the recovery room.

“It was in the neurosurgery ICU that I realized how much better my eyesight was already, even just the day of the surgery,” he said.

After six procedures in neurosurgery, the portable MRI is now available to the broader hospital team.

Duggal said possibilities for its use are extensive.

“It could save morbidity; it could save complications,” he said. ”You know, it can be brought to the intensive care unit right beside the patient’s bed. And then the transport — and all the risks related to transport — are eliminated. I think there are a lot of applications where this would be helpful.”

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