• Masazumi Fujii and Toshihiko Wakabayashi.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, 65 Tsurumai-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan.
• Brain Nerve. 2009 Jul 1; 61 (7): 823-34.

AbstractDespite remarkable advancements in brain tumor surgery after the introduction of operating microscopes and neuronavigation systems, precise removal of infiltrative brain tumors such as gliomas remains difficult. In many cases, the margins of these tumors are unclear even under the microscope. Neuronavigation based on preoperative images also is unreliable after the "brain shift" phonomenon following cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) withdrawal and/or tumor removal. Reports, however, have claimed total or near total resection of glioma is associated with better prognosis than subtotal or less amount of resection. Thus, advanced image-guided neurosurgery is expected to play an important role in achieving precise resection of such intrinsic and infiltrative brain tumors. However, caution must be exercised regarding the accuracy and reliability of image-guidance. Image-guided surgery therefore, should be supported and validated by using techniques for neurophysiological monitoring such as motor-evoked potential (MEP) under general anesthesia and monitoring of speech and motor function under awake craniotomy, if tumor is located in eloquent areas. There has been a worldwide increase in the installation of intraoperative MRI (iMRI) units in the operating room. Various lay-outs of the operating room and iMRI units with different magnetic field strengths ranging from 0.12T to 3.0T are currently in use. In 2006, we introduced 2 operation theaters with iMRI units, a 0.4T, relatively low (0.4T) and high (1.5T) magnetic-field strengths were installed at the Nagoya University Hospital and the Nagoya Central Hospital, one of our affiliated hospitals, respectively. In this paper, we discuss the, effectiveness of iMRI, as well as several problems associated with its application on the basis of the relevant literatures and our experience of more than 400 operations performed at the 2 different iMRI operation theaters, Brain THEATER and BrainSUITE.

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