Seeing into the brain
From the Medical Imaging Research Unit, based at the University of Cape Town, comes the exciting news that their stereophotogrammetric image-guide neurosurgical system (SIGNS) will shortly commence clinical trials.

The system was custom-designed and built by the unit's scientists, led by Prof. Kit Vaughan. The development of the system was funded by the Innovation Fund, and the scientists collaborated with the University of Stellenbosch's neurosurgeons as well as Electronic Development House, a Stellenbosch-based company.

SIGNS is revolutionary. It allows neurosurgeons to pinpoint fine structures in the brain while conducting their surgery interactively. This means that they can overlay the position of the tip of the instrument on a computer tomographic (CT) or magnetic resonance (MR) image of the participant's brain.

A camera system determines the position of the instrument held by the surgeon, computes the position of the tip of the instrument and displays the position graphically on the scanned image of the patient's brain. The position of the tip is updated continuously as it is moved into the brain tissue, allowing the surgeon to navigate accurately to tumours while watching the screen.

Vaughan anticipates two major benefits of the system. "Patients with pathologies such as deep-lying tumours will receive sophisticated treatment not previously available in South Africa. We will also be actively pursuing the commercialisation of this technology so that it becomes widely available in the developing world," he says.

Dr Alan Taylor (centre) tests out the SIGNS instrument on a phantom model in the operating theatre at Groote Schuur Hospital. Watching him are Ms Megan Watson (left), master's student in biomedical engineering and her supervisor, Dr Ernesta Meintjes.