'Rosa One Brain' arrives at London Children's Hospital

It's Epilepsy Awareness Day and the Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre is celebrating with the arrival of a brand new, state of the art robotic arm.

According to surgeons, the “Rosa One Brain” will help them perform a procedure that pinpoints the location of epileptic seizures in patients for subsequent brain surgery.

This robot-assisted surgery can ultimately treat children of their seizures, curing their epilepsy.

As one of two regional epilepsy surgery centres of excellence in Ontario, children’s hospital receives patient referrals from other hospitals, health centres and family doctors’ offices across the province.

To date, this type of robot was only available at LHSC’s University Hospital but surgeons say having a new robot at the children's hospital will allow them to better treat children without having to transport them back and forth between hospitals.

Dr. Sandrine De Ribaupierre, neurosurgeon at Children's Hospital says, “The robot actually allows us to put electrodes in the brain without having a big opening, because we do small holes for each electrode, and then we insert those electrodes and monitor that patient for about two weeks to know where the seizure is coming from and then we make a decision whether we can take that part of the brain out, to cure their epilepsy.” 

Children’s health foundation donors helped fund the $752,000 state-of-the-art piece of equipment.