Neurosurgery

Hans-Werner Bothe (born 23 September 1952 in Langelsheim, near Goslar) is a German philosopher and neurosurgeon. Bothe is founder of the recent field of research on Neurobionics.

Howard Dully (born November 30, 1948) is one of the youngest recipients of the transorbital lobotomy, a procedure performed on him when he was 12 years old. Dully received international attention in 2005, following the broadcasting of his story on National Public Radio. Subsequently, in 2007, he published a critically well-received memoir, My Lobotomy, a story of the hardships of his lobotomy, co-authored by Charles Fleming.

A neurectomy is a type of nerve block involving the severing or removal of a nerve. This surgery is performed in rare cases of severe chronic pain where no other treatments have been successful, and for other conditions such as vertigo, involuntary twitching and excessive blushing or sweating.

A Spinal Cord Stimulator (SCS) or Dorsal Column Stimulator (DCS) is a type of implantable neuromodulation device (sometimes called a "pain pacemaker") that is used to send electrical signals to select areas of the spinal cord (dorsal columns) for the treatment of certain pain conditions. SCS is a consideration for people who have a pain condition that has not responded to more conservative therapy.

Neurosurgery, or neurological surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, surgical treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and cerebrovascular system.

Eldon Leroy Foltz (March 28, 1919 - August 10, 2013) was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, Eldon L. Foltz grew up in East Lansing, Michigan. His father was Professor of Electrical Engineering at Michigan State University, and Foltz himself would go on to have a distinguished career as an academic and neurosurgeon.

ROSA™ is Medtech’s medical robotic technology, dedicated to minimally invasive surgeries of the central nervous system. ROSA™ robots assist health professionals during surgical procedures, increasing the precision and reliability of the gestures and reducing the operating time.

Michael W. Vannier (born January 12, 1949) is a radiologist in Chicago.

Intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) refers to an operating room configuration that enables surgeons to image the patient via an MRI scanner while the patient is undergoing surgery, particularly brain surgery. iMRI reduces the risk of damaging critical parts of the brain and helps confirm that the surgery was successful or if additional resection is needed before the patient’s head is closed and the surgery completed.

Neutron capture therapy (NCT) is a noninvasive therapeutic modality for treating locally invasive malignant tumors such as primary brain tumors, recurrent head and neck cancer, and cutaneous and extracutaneous melanomas. It is a two-step procedure: first, the patient is injected with a tumor-localizing drug containing the non-radioactive isotope boron-10 (B), which has a high propensity to capture thermal neutrons. The cross section of the B (3,837 barns) is many times greater than that of the other elements present in tissues such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. In the second step, the patient is radiated with epithermal neutrons, the source of which is either a nuclear reactor or, more recently, an accelerator. After losing energy as they penetrate tissue, the neutrons are captured by the B, which subsequently emits high-energy alpha particles that can selectively kill those tumor cells that have taken up sufficient quantities of B. All of the clinical experience to date with NCT is with the non-radioactive isotope boron-10, and this is known as boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). At this time, the use of other non-radioactive isotopes, such as gadolinium, has been limited to experimental studies, and to date, it has not been used clinically. BNCT has been evaluated clinically as an alternative to conventional radiation therapy for the treatment of high-grade gliomas, meningiomas, and recurrent, locally advanced cancers of the head and neck region and superficial cutaneous and extracutaneous melanomas.