How LITT Reaches Deep Brain Tumours Through a 3-mm Hole | Functional Surgery Minute #04

Hypothalamic hamartomas are surrounded by the optic chiasm, pituitary stalk, mammillary bodies, and perforating vessels.

Traditional open approaches to hypothalamic hamartomas required splitting fissures, retracting the frontal lobe, and working millimeter by millimeter around critical structures.

Open surgical series for hypothalamic hamartomas reported complications in more than half of patients.

LITT delivers energy from inside the lesion rather than creating a corridor to reach it.

LITT uses a stereotactic bolt through a 3-mm burr hole with robotic guidance and a laser catheter advanced to the target.

LITT is performed inside the MRI scanner with a real-time thermal map showing ablation expansion second by second.

Safety markers are placed next to the optic tract and fornix during LITT, and ablation is stopped when heat approaches these structures.

Published hamartoma series report seizure freedom rates of 56 to 84% with LITT.

Hospital stay for LITT is typically overnight.

LITT requires only a small scalp incision, not a craniotomy.

LITT is expanding to other conditions including mesial temporal epilepsy, insular cavernomas, and periventricular heterotopia.

Traditional open approaches to deep brain targets required cutting a corridor through healthy tissue, which the brain does not tolerate well.

LITT works from inside the lesion, leaving overlying healthy brain tissue untouched.