A surgical robotic arm has been helping doctors at Taipei Veterans General Hospital perform brain surgeries to treat drug-resistant epilepsy.
Taiwan has about 200,000 to 300,000 people with epilepsy, of which 60,000 to 70,000 can only be treated by surgery that removes the condition’s physiological cause — called epileptic focus — from the patient’s brain, Lee Cheng-chia (李政家), a neurosurgeon at the hospital, said on Thursday last week.
Open brain surgery poses a high risk to patients, particularly those with an epileptic focus located deep inside the brain or spread over a wide part of the organ, making it more difficult for surgeons to bypass blood vessels or regions of the brain that govern vital functions, he said.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
The hospital’s robot-assisted surgery system features 3D imaging and a real-time surgical instrument tracking capability, which enables epileptic surgeries to be performed without opening up the skull, he said.
Since receiving the machine in March 2021, the hospital has performed more than 100 successful procedures, Lee said.
Many patients would never have been treated surgically if the robotic arm was not there to mitigate risks associated with the procedure, he added.
Aided by the robotic arm, surgeons can perform a wide variety of procedures, including electrode implantation, deep brain stimulation and biopsy at twice the speed of unassisted surgery, while experiencing less fatigue and reducing chances of making a mistake, he said.
People with drug-resistant epilepsy are usually unable to live a normal life or work, Lee said.
Surgery can cure about 70 percent of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy and reduce the frequency of attacks in 20 percent of patients, he said.
The beneficiaries of the hospital’s robotic system include a 37-year-old man who had suffered from the condition since he was 10, said Yu Hsiang-yu (尤香玉), who heads the hospital’s epilepsy department.
The man faced a bleak prognosis because the epileptic focus was close to the visual cortex, meaning it could not be removed without a significant risk of blindness, she said, adding that the mood of the patient’s medical team was grim.
The surgery was made possible with the hospital’s acquisition of the robotic system, which allowed doctors to precisely target the focus with an electric pulse in lieu of open brain surgery, Yu said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and