Wire offers boost for brain surgery

A wire finer than a human hair that can reach blood vessels deep in the brain has been created in what could be a breakthrough in the treatment of tumours.

A wire finer than a human hair that can reach blood vessels deep in the brain has been created in what could be a breakthrough in the treatment of tumours.

For years, surgeons have used a very thin wire, inserted into an artery near the groin or leg and carefully guided up to the brain, to examine blood vessels in and around the brain.

Guided by a fluoroscope, an instrument that uses X-rays to picture blood vessels, the surgeon manually moves the wire into the damaged brain vessel. A catheter can then be threaded up along the wire to deliver drugs or devices to the affected region.

However, many peripheral vessels in the brain are unreachable with a catheter because they are too narrow and intricate. If the wire is too stiff it can pierce blood vessels and cause tissue damage, and if it is not stiff enough it can get stuck. This has meant that a large portion of the brain is still ­inaccessible to surgeons.

Now, however, scientists in Switzerland have created an ultra-flexible device less than 100 microns thick — thinner than a human hair. It is moved through capillaries by the flow of blood, reducing the potential for a catheter to hit the wall of a blood vessel. The wire also has a magnetic head that allows it to be guided by a surgeon from outside the body.

“Imagine a fish hook gradually released into a river. It will get carried along by the current,” Lucio Pancaldi-Giubbini, from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, said. “We simply hold on to one end of the device and let the blood drag it to the most peripheral tissues.”

In tests, the wire was found to be flexible enough to pass through capillaries without damaging their walls. The researchers said that using blood flow to guide a catheter could reduce the time needed for an operation.

The Times