When it comes to brain surgery, even the smallest detail matters.
In children, just a tiny difference in where a surgeon operates can affect important abilities like talking, moving, or seeing. That’s why precision is so important.
At Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, pediatric neurosurgeons are using advanced technology to make brain surgery safer and more precise than ever before.
Led by Michael Levy, MD, PhD, the team performs more than 600 brain and spine procedures each year. These include surgeries for brain tumors, epilepsy, and other complex conditions.
New tools now allow surgeons to see and navigate the brain with incredible accuracy, down to about 1.5 millimeters. That’s about the thickness of a grain of rice. This helps surgeons treat the problem while protecting the healthy parts of a child’s brain.
This level of precision is especially important for rare conditions like brain aneurysms, which are uncommon in children and can be very complex. Because they are so rare, experience matters. Hospitals like Rady Children’s that treat many of these cases often have better outcomes.
Pediatric neurosurgeons like Jillian H. Plonsker, MD, are also studying these conditions to improve care. She worked with Dr. Levy on a study published in the medical journal Child’s Nervous System, looking at nearly 20 years of how children with brain aneurysms have been treated. The goal is to better understand what works best and continue improving outcomes for patients.
Today’s advanced technology helps surgeons:
- Find even very small problem areas
- Safely take samples (biopsies) from deep parts of the brain
- Move from diagnosis to treatment during the same surgery when possible
For families, this means safer procedures, better outcomes, and more confidence when facing complex brain conditions.