A young man from Trequite, Cornwall, named 15-year-old Billy Whitaker, can finally celebrate a normal life. After seven years of daily epilepsy attacks and even surgery to remove parts of his brain, his most recent operation seems to have ended his illness once and for all.

The success of the last surgery was not just a matter of luck, however, but of a new $ 2 million robot used by Bristol Children's Hospital. The new technology, which was first used at Billy by the hospital, consists of a set of extremely sensitive electrodes that are installed inside the young man's brain; To do this, the robot makes a series of tiny incisions with perforations of only 1 mm thick.

Thanks to these electrodes, in turn, doctors were able to identify the exact point where the failure occurred in the boy's brain. What's more, the electrodes were able to map out every part of Billy's organ in detail, helping doctors make their way to the point to be treated.

"We can use the robot to define extremely safe and highly accurate trajectories through brain tissue so that we can implant a series of electrodes through tiny holes in the skull, with small perforation incisions, directly into the areas we want, " he explained. neurosurgeon Michael Carter, while praising the new equipment.

Weeks after surgery, Billy is already on track for a full recovery

If you're wondering why accuracy is so important, we explain. The fact is that epilepsy is caused by a defective section of the brain, and the only way to end the real disease is by literally removing that part with the bad part. Yeah, I don't think I need to explain why it's not a good idea to remove too many parts of our brain.

Back to normal life

That said, it is important to note that Billy had been through a procedure like this before, with a portion of his right temporal lobe removed. Although successful, the operation only temporarily stopped epilepsy: a year after the surgery, Whitaker suffered again from the disease - and the drugs to control it no longer worked, to make it worse.

Fortunately, it seems that this will not be the case for the new surgery. Not only was the portion of the brain removed much smaller than before (just the size of a fingertip, according to the SNWS website), but doctors this time hope to get rid of the disease once and for all. In fact, everything seems to indicate just that, as the patient has not had any other cases of epilepsy in the weeks since surgery.

It may seem like a big deal of damage, but it was pretty small for Billy's brain surgery.

As for Billy's future, finally, there is still a long way to go while the young man recovers. But he says he is anxious to be able to return to sporting activities such as football, rugby and golf, which he could not participate in due to illness, as well as being able to get his driver's license - something forbidden for people with epilepsy.

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Via TecMundo.