Posted on: 23 Mar 2018
Paediatric Neurosurgeon Donald MacArthur talks about help for children with brain tumours at Nottingham Children’s Hospital as part of our Big iMRI Appeal.
I first met David Fern three years ago, when his 16-month-old daughter Olivia was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I’ve now performed four brain surgeries on Olivia, and have watched her brave battle.
I want to do all I can to help children like Olivia, and that’s why her dad David and I are joining forces to support Nottingham Hospitals Charity’s Big iMRI Appeal to provide the very best outcomes for young patients with brain tumours.
“With modern treatment, it is incredible that up to 70 per cent of children can be cured of their brain tumours.”
The key to this is removing as much of the tumour as we can and causing as little damage as possible to the surrounding brain while doing that. This is where an intra-operative MRI which can be used during operations provides an invaluable tool.
An intra-operative MRI or iMRI as we call it, is located within our surgical theatre area. During key parts of our brain surgery we can slide a patient while they are still asleep into the iMRI scanner. This then gives us an incredibly detailed picture of how we are doing and whether we have missed anything that the human eye and standard ultrasound cannot detect.
Some portions of children’s tumours can be hiding ’around corners’ and they can look exactly the same as regular brain tissue, so this new technology will be key in making sure we’ve removed as much of the tumour as is safely possible.
David and I are equally passionate about what a difference this iMRI will make to young patients like his daughter Olivia. Have a look at our video where we explain more. Thank you!
If you can support the Big iMRI Appeal any donation, large or small, will go towards helping Donald help children like Olivia.
You can donate via our Big iMRI Appeal webpage. Or you can donate or fundraise via Donald and David’s Just Giving page.