14 DAY TRIAL // A team of professors from Vanderbilt University have cracked a problem that has stumped medics for a long time: treatment of blood clots in the brain.
Sure, there are surgical procedures that can get rid of cranial blood clots, but they are very risky, invasive and not lacking in long-term consequences.
The scientists have come up with a steerable robotic needle that can perform surgery on parts of the brain previously thought too dangerous for physical intervention.
Composed of two very thin tubes, the needle only needs a small hole to be drilled into the skull of a person.
The outer tube is straight, as is the one that goes through the hole and into the brain. The tube within the other tube is flexible, and can rotate as well. It is the one that goes into the blood clot and sucks out the spilled fluid without causing damage to anything else.
All the human surgeons need to do is figure out the best position and angle of insertion. CT scans are used for guiding the tube after that.
During simulations, up to 92 percent of a blood clot was successfully removed.