Hi all - This Visualase procedure has been done at 8 different sites.

WCIV Charleston, SC - MUSC is on the cutting edge of technology.
05/21/09 6:28 pm

They're performing another first, a 30 minute brain surgery. This procedure allows the patient to go home in just one day.

Lester Beck, 68, gives a hardy 4-up, indicating he's doing well after having brain surgery.

"I feel great," he said.

Beck landed in the hospital after a scary diagnosis.

"I had a brain tumor, my goodness what can I say and it turned out to be a malignant brain tumor and then we were given the laser route as opposed to the more invasive knife cutting," Beck said.

On Wednesday he underwent a brand new type of surgery called Laser Thermal Ablation.

"We used laser heat to destroy a tumor," Neurosurgeon Dr. Raymond Turner explained.

He said Beck's golf ball sized tumor made him a perfect candidate for this operation,

"I drilled a small hole about an eighth of an inch in diameter the placed a small fiber optic laser right into the tumor using MRI navigation," according to Dr. Turner.

Then using MRI imaging, Dr. Turner activated the laser and watched the tumor heat up and dissipate. The entire procedure took about 30 minutes and Beck was awake through much of it.

"When we actually turned the laser on he was awake in the MRI machine talking to us," Dr. Turner said.

Mr. Beck is the first person in the entire southeast to have this groundbreaking procedure.

MUSC received the technology earlier this year. It's only been done 10 other times in the US.
In Beck's case this new technique replaced invasive brain surgery that requires a six inch incision in the skull and weeks of recovery. Beck was left with a quarter inch cut.
"They used a staple gun and it hurt a little bit and that's the most pain that I felt," Beck said.
Beck will go home tomorrow.
This is brain tumor awareness month.