Neuroendoscopy

When people talk about the impressive technological progress that has occurred in medicine in the past few decades, they usually note one of the most advanced medical fields in this context – endoscopy: the use of a thin optic fiber to perform examinations, diagnoses and even entire operations, via a few tiny incisions in the skin. The use of the endoscope is common today in many branches of medicine, including neurosurgery, and ensures a very precise operation and rapid recovery.

Herzliya Medical Center hospital is considered to be a leading medical center in Israel in the field of endoscopy and employs in the Neurosurgical Center for Excellence physicians who are experts in the use of the endoscope in various surgical procedures – neuroendoscopic operations.

Neuroendoscopy and its Advantages

The endoscope is essentially intended to make various operations easier for you, the patients, both from the point of view of the risks expected during the operation and from the point of view of the duration of the recovery period on completion of the medical procedure.

The endoscope resembles a thin, flexible tube, between 2 mm and 10 mm in diameter, with a tiny camera and light source at its tip, which directly transmits a clear, close-up and precise picture of the specific organ or area in the body, before the physician’s eyes on a large screen in live transmission. In practical terms, the endoscope allows the physician to assess a very close up focus of the area to be treated, without he himself being close to it or invasively reaching it. The use of an endoscope in some cases obviates the need for an open operation, which requires a deep incision to be made in the treated area and is considered to be associated with a much more difficult recovery.

Today, these advantages also enhance the work of many neurosurgeons who quite often perform procedures using an endoscope. As is well known, neurosurgical operations are operations that focus on treating very sensitive systems in our bodies: the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nervous system and more. Neuroendoscopy operations help the physician to perform these complex procedures with maximal precision while causing minimal damage to the patient.

Neuroendoscopy: superbly focused on the neurosurgical treatment

The maximal precision is one of the big advantages of neuroendoscopy operations: the endoscope ensures that the damage to healthy tissue around the focus of the treatment will be extremely minimal, due to the use of tiny surgical instruments and the magnified image of the treated area. In the field of neurosurgery, this is a critical issue, because, in such operation, accuracy to within a few millimeters is needed to ensure good results.

Neuroendoscopy essentially allows the physician to achieve particularly high success rates even in very sensitive regions of our bodies, whose normal function is vital to the function of the entire body. At Herzliya Medical Center, we have leading physicians performing endoscopic neurosurgery. They have undergone prolonged, comprehensive training, equipping them with the skills needed to perform endoscopic operations, including extremely complex neuroendoscopic operations.

Today, neuroendoscopy is used in many surgical procedures, including:

• Complex brain surgery
• Spinal cord and spinal column operations
• Back surgery with neurological implications
• Hydrocephalus surgery (mainly for endoscopic ventriculostomy – the creation of an opening in the floor of the brain).

Essentially, endoscopic operations can serve as an alternative to almost all neurosurgical operations that in the past were performed by the open approach – including operations of the cervical spine and the lower spine. The capabilities of neuroendoscopic experts are continually improving over the years, enabling them to perform many neurosurgical operations by this method, achieving particularly impressive results that do not fall short of any other method.

At the Neurosurgical Center for Excellence at Herzliya Medical Center Hospital, there are also very many neurosurgical procedures currently performed in the framework of endoscopic operations:

• Removal of benign and malignant tumors
• Treatment of narrowing of the spinal canal
• Rehabilitation of damaged nerves
• Treatment of birth defects
• Disk herniation treatment
• Operations of the pituitary gland (hypophysis).

The recovery period following neuroendoscopy operations

As we mentioned above, use of the endoscope significantly shortens the healing and recovery period in the vast majority of cases, in every operation performed by this method. What holds in other fields also holds for neuroendoscopy: these procedures will almost always ensure relatively short and rapid recovery – and for anything to do with the realm of neurosurgery, this is a critical issue of great importance.

Endoscopic neurosurgery will, in many instances, will enable you to be ‘back on your feet’ within hours of the operation; it will ensure that you will be able to return to your daily routine (with certain limitations, of course) very rapidly; it will enable you to recover and be back to normal within a very short time, which in the past was thought to be impossible.

These advantages are achieved due to neuroendoscopy’s two main advantages: the tiny incisions made in the skin in order to perform the operation, and the minimal damage to healthy tissue during the procedure.

At Herzliya Medical Center Hospital, neuroendoscopic operations are carried out by the best of surgeons in Israel and in the world.

Contact us today and make an appointment for a pre-surgical diagnosis.