I've cut your leg to reach your brain

Siddhartha Wuppalapati in the new 3D brain lab at RPH

Brain surgery will be taking on a new dimension at Royal Preston Hospital as surgeons operate on patients via a cut in their leg.

A new 3D brain imaging lab will be unveiled by hospital chiefs in Preston and is hailed as the most advanced in the North West.

The £2m facility will be used for life-saving brain operations which only require a small cut in the leg rather than a craniotomy to open the skull.
The new lab will open today and also features a biplanar machine which creates real-time 3D images.
This will allow doctors to navigate a tiny tube called a catheter through a main artery in the leg and along blood vessels into the brain.
The catheter is used to insert miniature platinum coils to repair life-threatening burst aneurysms, retrieve blood clots on the brain and treat certain strokes.
The biplanar incorporates a CT scanner for more detailed images to be taken during a procedure.
The imagery is viewed by medical staff on a 56-inch flat screen monitor which sits in the centre of the procedure room.
Operations can last between three to four hours and scores of coils can be inserted at any one time.
The lab also has hi-tech advances to aid infection prevention including special non-touch sink taps and electric doors and hidden storage to ensure supplies are protected.
Siddhartha Wuppalapati, consultant neuroradiologist at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is the lead for the service.
He said: "This is the most advanced brain coiling facility in the North West of England and one of only two in the UK which features 3D imaging with large monitor viewing technology.
"Brain coiling and embolization, which is a way to close blood vessels that are doing harm, are recently developed brain surgery techniques.
"The procedures involve threading a catheter from an artery in the leg to the brain.
"The treatment leads to significantly better long-term survival rates than major brain surgery and will save or improve the lives of around 100 patients each year."