Families of children suffering from brain cancer are launching a campaign to transform treatment in Nottingham with a scanner which can be used on a patient while they are still on the operating table.
The families and Nottingham Hospitals Charity are raising money for a brand new intra-operative i-MRI. Doctors say it will transform vital brain surgery operations for people across Nottinghamshire and the region.
Donald MacArthur a paediatric neurosurgeon at Nottingham University Hospitals said: “It is incredible to think that with modern treatment 70 percent of children can be cured of their brain tumours.
“Using an MRI during operations, or what we surgeons call an intra-operative i-MRI, is a significant benefit as it can help us completely remove tumours whenever there is the possibility of doing this.
“This is why I am backing the campaign so that we achieve the best possible outcomes for our young patients.”
Nottingham Children’s Hospital, based at QMC, is the leading regional centre for children’s neurosurgery, with more than 1,000 MRI scans on children each year including those with life-threatening brain cancer.
Staff, supporters and families are already getting behind the campaign, naming it the Big iMRI Appeal with the Children’s Hospital’s ‘Little Robin’ mascot shown sitting on an MRI waiting for his scan. The goal is to raise around £4 million.
Four-year-old Olivia Fern was first diagnosed with brain cancer when she was sixteen months old.
Dad David said: “The professionalism and the capabilities of Mr MacArthur are unbelievable – to be able to do in-depth operations on a brain that’s so small, and her tumours were around the brain stem so the slightest slip and she would be permanently damaged. The skill of the man, and the knowledge, is just fantastic.
“I think the iMRI will save lives and reduce the amount of operations. It can make the difference of being able to remove all of the tumour or most of the tumour in one go, in one operation – rather than having to wait, re-scan and then re-operate to remove a little bit more.”
