Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Views
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Doctors use ultrasound waves to stop hand tremors

October 21, 2015 By Nic Abraham

“This is brain surgery without cutting the skin,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Ali Rezai, principal investigator at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center and director of the Center for Neuromodulation at Ohio State’s Neurological Institute. “

“This is brain surgery without cutting the skin,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Ali Rezai, principal investigator at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center and director of the Center for Neuromodulation at Ohio State’s Neurological Institute. “

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is one of six locations nationally – and the only one in the Midwest – studying the safety and effectiveness of a promising new technology using MR-guided focused ultrasound to treat patients suffering from essential tremor as part of a multi-center FDA trial.

Nationwide, 50 patients whose tremors cannot be controlled with medication will be treated with the Exablate Neuro by INSIGHTEC, which uses Magnetic Resonance-guided focused ultrasound to treat tissue deep in the brain without incisions or radiation. The clinical trial is scheduled to conclude in December 2016.

Essential tremor is the most common movement disorder, affecting about 10 million people in the United States, and millions more worldwide, according to the International Essential Tremor Foundation. It’s a progressive and debilitating neurological condition that causes a rhythmic trembling of the hands, head, voice, legs or trunk.

Current treatment options include medications that aren’t always effective or deep brain stimulation (DBS), said Ohio State neurosurgeon Dr. Vibhor Krishna, who performed these surgeries when he was working in Toronto, Canada.

Last month, Stephen Palovchik, 71, of Delaware, Ohio, became the first patient treated with this technology at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. His tremors started when he was in high school, and became progressively so bad that he had trouble putting a key into a door lock or writing on the blackboard. He struggled to sign checks, eat or brush his teeth.

During the four-hour surgery in the intraoperative MRI-surgical suite, Palovchik was awake and gave real-time feedback to the team of neurosurgeons, neuro-radiologists, neurologists and nurses. His feedback helped the team determine the exact brain cells to target with 1,024 beams of ultrasound focused on one spot deep in the brain that controls involuntary movements.

Palovchik is pleased with how well he can now sign checks, feed himself and brush his teeth without assistance, and calls the focused ultrasound technology “a gift from heaven.”

The technology is a new treatment option for older patients who are not good candidates for traditional DBS pacemaker surgery in which tiny electrodes are surgically implanted into the brain and connected to a small pacemaker-like device that has been implanted into the chest wall, Krishna said. The pacemaker delivers electrical signals that regulate abnormal brain activity, alleviating disabling symptoms, such as tremors, and restoring function.

Other centers involved in the research are Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Stanford Medical Center in Stanford, Calif., Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore and University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. This minimally invasive treatment is already approved for use in Europe. FDA approval in the United States is pending.

OSU Wexner Medical Center 
www.osumc.edu

Related Articles Read More >

Yellow dual‑material test part, 3D‑printed by UT Austin’s two‑light system to demonstrate seamless soft‑and‑rigid sections.
Dual‑light 3D printing fuses soft and hard plastics for flexible medical devices
Illustration of MIT’s bone-anchored bionic knee: powered prosthetic leg, amputee using the device to walk and step over an obstacle, and cross-sections of thigh muscles showing electrodes and a titanium implant connecting nerves and bone.
Bionic knee wired to muscle nerves helps amputees clear obstacles, climb stairs
Carnegie Mellon University EEG-based BCI to control robotic hand
Non-invasive BCI enables robotic hand dexterity
Digital twins
How digital twins could advance cancer care
“mdo
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest medical device business news, application and technology trends.

DeviceTalks Weekly

See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Views
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe