TREATMENTS AND THERAPIES
Visualase™ MRI-guided laser ablation
For focal epilepsy
Understanding epilepsy
Epilepsy is a chronic disease marked by recurrent unprovoked seizures. Although the symptoms of a seizure may affect any part of your body, the electrical events that produce the symptoms occur in your brain. The type of seizure, location of symptoms in your body, how much of the brain is affected, how long the seizure lasts, and your age all have profound effects on your experience with epilepsy and its impact on your life.†
When medications aren’t enough
Some seizures caused by epilepsy are not always sufficiently controlled with medication. When medications aren’t enough to control seizures, Visualase™ MRI-guided laser ablation offers a powerful alternative for people who have focal epilepsy.
Approximately
30–40%
of people experience seizures that recur in varying degrees of intensity and frequency despite anti-epileptic drug treatment and may be candidates for other therapies.1
How Visualase™ laser ablation works
Visualase™ uses MRI images to guide a small catheter to the exact location of the seizure focus. This precision ensures that only the problematic tissue is targeted, leaving healthy tissue intact. The procedure is minimally invasive, and the real-time MRI monitoring enhances safety throughout the process.
Your surgeon may offer Visualase™ as a surgical option if you have the following:
- Focal epilepsy (your epilepsy is limited to a specific location in the brain)
- Refractory to antiepileptic medications
- If you are a candidate for resection surgery, you may be a candidate for LITT
Visualase™ is not appropriate for the following:
- Patients diagnosed with generalized epilepsy
- Patients who have medical conditions that are contraindicated for MRI
- Patients who have implanted medical devices that are contraindicated for MRI
- Patients whose physician determines that laser-induced thermal therapy. (LITT) is not acceptable
- Patients for which invasive surgical procedures in the brain is not appropriate
What are the benefits of Visualase™ MRI-guided laser ablation?
Visualase™ is an MRI-guided laser system used to perform a minimally invasive surgical procedure called laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT).
Compared to open brain surgery , Visualase™ MRI-guided laser ablation offers patients:
Proven technology
FDA
cleared
to ablate epileptic foci, radiation necrosis, and tumors in the brain.
Over 10,000
neurosurgical procedures have been performed globally and are offered in over 110 centers in the United States.
Tried and true
technology with over a 17-year legacy of serving patients.
