The world’s first experience of opening a remote MRgFUS operating room

2020 the year entered the history of medicine as a year of trials and difficult decisions. But as it is known, challenges destroy the weak and make the strong even stronger. The restrictions associated with   COVID-19,  were not allowed to launch the innovative Center for the Treatment of Movement Disorders in the Russian city of Ufa in the usual way. Proctor specialists were unable to arrive in Russia to launch the new technology for Russia, but the team at the Intelligent Neurosurgery Clinic was not deterred.

The new operating room, equipped based on MRI research facilities, was further equipped with video cameras, and the computers controlling the process of surgery with focused ultrasound were configured to transmit information in real-time to foreign clinics for monitoring the treatment procedure.

And thus, medical and technical specialists from Israel, the United Kingdom, and Spain gained direct remote access to the operating room—both visual and to the operating computers and treatment procedure control parameters. Under their supervision, the first 94 patients were treated: 27 with essential tremor and 67 with tremor-dominant form of Parkinson’s disease. After a thorough review of the procedures and their outcomes, the Ufa MRI-guided focused ultrasound treatment center was successfully certified for independent operation.

The experience of implementing new technology using telemedicine technologies at the V.S. Buzaev International Medical Centre in Ufa® so inspired the equipment developers and proctors that they adopted it. The next medical center in France, where the MRgFUS technology was implemented, was opened in this way—without the in-person presence of proctors, in a remote mode, using telemedicine technologies.

Experience in Using Telemedicine to Implement a New Non-Invasive Transcranial Neurosurgical Platform   Eх Ablate Neuro 4000 was published   8 August 2023 as an original article in the publication  

Published in:

2024 — Buzaev, I. V., Galimova, R. M., Nabiullina, D. I., Illarioshkin, S. N., Zagidullin, N. S., & Safin, S. M. (2024). Magnetic resonance imaging-guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy launch with remote telemedicine international proctorship. Chronic Diseases and Translational Medicine, 10(01), 40-50.