ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: A French team at the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, led by Professor Alexandre Carpentier, revealed this week that it has managed for the first time to destroy metastasis tumours in the brain without opening up the skull, using laser.

This development offers fresh hope to cancer patients and paves the way for a new application for nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, according to a French embassy press release.

It all sounds quite simple: a small hole is pierced in the skull and a fibre-optic cable ending in a laser is passed through the hole until a cerebral metastasis is reached. The laser is turned on and the tumour is destroyed in under two minutes. The whole process is controlled in real time using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

First, a team of neurosurgeons uses MRI to identify the precise location of the tumour to be destroyed. A three-millimetre diameter opening is then made in the skull to introduce the fibre optic cable, which is fitted with a laser. A computer-based simulation is used to check that the laser is correctly positioned in the centre of the tumour, and then the laser is turned on, heating the tumorous tissue and destroying it.

Highly sophisticated technology lies behind this apparently simple process, developed by the French in conjunction with American researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston and the company BioTex at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). Prof Carpentier emphasises that “this is the first time laser technology has been used in an intracranial environment and combined with MRI to provide data in real time. This is a new stage in the use of MRI in neurosurgery, as part of a surgical operation.”

The laser used can be “chilled” on a continuous basis, which makes it possible to avoid coagulates forming on its contact.

In addition to the simplicity and safety of the treatment, the procedure significantly improves the conditions under which the operation takes place: The patient lies in the MRI scanner and is conscious but does not feel anything. The surgery is carried out under a local anaesthetic and the patient can leave the hospital the same evening.

These operations are the final phase of a clinical trial involving 15 people. The life expectancy of patients treated in this way has been significantly extended. The trial, which was supervised by the French agency for the safety of healthcare products (Afssaps), involved patients suffering from cerebral metastases that appeared following various types of cancer, in particular of the breast and lung (it is estimated that around 20 per cent of patients who die from cancer have one or more cerebral metastases). “As a result, the life expectancy of these people was no more than three months or so,” points out Professor Carpentier.

In all, nine of the 15 treatments carried out were partial and the remaining six full. Of the later group, five of the six patients showed no signs of a recurrence for an average of nine months. The team therefore feels it has now achieved some very satisfactory results.

The eternal problem remains, however: in spite of the 50,000 euros brought in by the 2008 prize for technological innovation that Prof Carpentier has just received, he still lacks the funding he needs. “Perhaps the great interest aroused in the profession and the media will help to change the situation, Prof Carpentier expressed a hope.