Laser craniotome for awake surgery for deep brain stimulation
The STELLA demonstrator will be presented at the Fraunhofer ILT stand at the MedtecLIVE Healthtech Pavilion. A new robot-supported and optically precisely monitored laser procedure from the Fraunhofer ILT that enables gentle, vibration-free and virtually noiseless craniotomies while awake.
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Laser applicator with integrated mini scanner, telescope, OCT sensor and beam position monitoring. -
Circular laser cut on a bovine bone bovine bone with superimposed point cloud from the measurement data of the OCT scan.
Neurosurgical procedures on motor, cognitive or sensory regions of the brain are sometimes performed while the patient is fully conscious. One hurdle in such operations on awake patients is the mechanical opening of the skull by sawing or milling. This is perceived as highly traumatizing by those undergoing surgery. The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen is developing a new procedure that opens the skull almost silently and gently using laser pulses. In a digitally controlled and sensor-monitored process, the pulses, which are about 100 nanoseconds short, remove the bone tissue in tiny portions without heating it. The procedure leaves clean, colorless cut edges where the bone quickly grows back together after the operation. To ensure that the laser opens the skull without hitting the underlying tissue, an optical coherence tomography (OCT) measurement beam is superimposed on it. Thanks to this inline sensor technology, the surgeons can see exactly how the removal of the bone tissue is progressing - until they can remove the quietly loosened, circular bone flap and begin the actual brain surgery.
