Smart needle developed to make brain surgery safer

A collaborative project between researchers at the University of Adelaide and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital have developed a high-tech medical device to help make brain surgery safer.

By using a tiny imaging probe encased within a brain biopsy needle, surgeons can see vulnerable blood vessels and avoid causing potentially fatal bleeds.

The researchers call it a ‘smart needle’. Professor Robert McLaughlin, chair of Biophotonics, Centre for Nanoscale Bio Photonics, University of Adelaide said: “It contains a tiny fibre-optic camera, the size of a human hair, shining infrared light to see the vessels before the needle can damage them. And what’s really exciting is the computer smarts behind this so that the computer itself recognises the blood vessel and alerts the surgeon.”

The ‘smart needle’ has been used in a pilot trial with 12 patients undergoing neurosurgery at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Western Australia. The researchers hope that the smart needle will be ready for clinical trials in 2018.

The Australian government has invested $23 million until 2021 to encourage research discoveries through the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics.

Education and Training minister, senator Simon Birmingham said: “This smart biopsy device is an outstanding example of how our investment in research can translate into real benefits for industries and ultimately for Australians. Professors McLaughlin and Lind are improving lives and are exemplars of Australian ingenuity who are leading the world as innovators in medical technology. This truly transformational technology will make brain surgery safer and I expect in the months and years to come we will see this as one of the first in the next generation of research breakthroughs supported by the Turnbull Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda.”

Professor Christopher Lind, consultant neurosurgeon, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and the Uniersity of Western Australia said: “To have a tool that can see blood vessels as we proceed through the brain would revolutionise neurosurgery. It will open the way for safer surgery, allowing us to do things we’ve not been able to do before.”