Clinical Trial Set For ‘Revolutionary’ Brain Surgery Device

A groundbreaking approach to brain cancer surgery is being trialled at Salford Royal Hospital, using a wafer thin graphene chip the size of a postage stamp.

Amethyst Radiotherapy News  |  November 4, 2024

Clinical Trial Set For ‘Revolutionary’ Brain Surgery Device

Treating brain tumours is one of the difficult challenges in medicine. In the UK, there are an average of 12,746 new cases diagnosed each year, resulting in 5,456 deaths. Currently, only 11 per cent of brain cancer patients live for ten years or more, and little progress has been made on survival rates for over two decades.

For certain types of brain tumour, one of the most effective methods is Gamma Knife surgery, a noninvasive procedure which involves using computer guided radiation therapy to deliver highly focused gamma rays to the cancer cells. This can target areas of the brain tumour that cannot be reached by traditional neurosurgery, and can target multiple tumours.

What is Gamma Knife surgery?

It’s often used in conjunction with regular surgery to remove the parts of the tumour that were inaccessible or too risky to remove physically. It can also be used as an alternative to surgery if the patient is not a suitable candidate. Traditional neurosurgery involving incisions can be very risky, with the potential for bleeding, infections, and damage to the brain tissue.

However, not all brain tumour patients may be suitable candidates for stereotactic radiosurgery such as Gamma Knife. In some cases the treatment may be focused on extending lifespan by controlling the spread of the malignant cells, rather than eliminating the cancer cells completely.

This may be particularly the case for people with glioblastomas, which are usually very fast growing and aggressive forms of brain tumour without any clear boundaries. This can make them very difficult to treat, and sadly the prognosis for most patients is just one to two years.

A potentially revolutionary approach to surgical brain cancer treatment

There have been no major new breakthroughs in the treatment of brain cancer in the last 20 years, despite ongoing clinical research. However, a groundbreaking new approach to brain cancer surgery is being trialled at Salford Royal Hospital in Greater Manchester, the Guardian reports.

The procedure involves using a chip about the size of a postage stamp that is made out of graphene. This material was invented by a team of scientists at Manchester University 20 years ago, and is only one atom thick, but many times stronger than steel with excellent conductive properties.

The chip is known as a brain-computer interface device, and has been created through an international collaboration of scientists. It is designed to differentiate between the cancer cells and the healthy cells in the brain by detecting electrical impulses, allowing for surgical treatments to be targeted with much greater accuracy.

What the experts have to say

Carolina Aguilar, CEO and Co-Founder of INBRAIN Neuroelectronics, who were involved in the research and development of the device, told Manchester University: “The world’s first human application of a graphene-based BCI highlights the transformative impact of graphene-based neural technologies in medicine.”

She added: “This clinical milestone opens a new era for BCI technology, paving the way for advancements in both neural decoding and its application as a therapeutic intervention,”

Dr. David Coope, the neurosurgeon who performed the breakthrough procedure at Salford Royal, said:

“We are capturing brain activity in areas where traditional metals and materials struggle with signal fidelity. Graphene provides ultra-high density for sensing and stimulating, which is critical to conduct high precision resections while preserving the patient’s functional capacities, such as movement, language or cognition.”

Kostas Kostarelos, a professor of nanomedicine at Manchester, was also one of the team involved in developing the BCI device. He explained to the Guardian: “This is the first ever clinical trial to be performed anywhere in the world with a graphene-based medical device.”

“Its first use will be to differentiate cancer cells from healthy cells to ensure that surgery on brain tumours is directed in a highly accurate way. We can study some electrical signals that are emitted by brain cells. However, those of very low and very high frequency are very difficult to detect in the living brain.”

“Only those in middle-range frequencies can be monitored at present. Crucially, the BCI chip can pinpoint a huge range of electrical signals in the brain, including those of very high and very low frequencies.”

It is hoped that the device can also be used to research and treat other conditions such as stroke and epilepsy.

If you would like some more information about Gamma Knife surgery and brain cancer, please contact Mr Neil Kitchen of Amethyst Radiotherapy.


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