![\"Disappearing](\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/460\/2022\/02\/Krishna-image-with-headers-265x300.jpg\")
\u00a0surgery. However, as time passes, the ablated tissue disappears and becomes indistinguishable from the surrounding brain. This disappearance adversely impacts patient care, especially when formulating a well-informed treatment plan.<\/p>\nThe power of observation in advancing clinical medicine and research is undeniable. To quote DH Lawrence: \u201cWhat the eye doesn\u2019t see,\u00a0and the mind doesn\u2019t know, doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
But how to resolve a conundrum where the mind is convinced that a phenomenon must exist, but the eyes cannot confirm or deny its existence?<\/p>\n
We encountered one such conundrum in our research with focused ultrasound. We will call it \u2018The curious case of disappearing ablation!\u2019<\/p>\n
It so happens that when we treat patients with focused ultrasound, we see a well-defined ablation on imaging immediately after the\u00a0surgery. However, as time passes, the ablated tissue disappears and becomes indistinguishable from the surrounding brain. This disappearance adversely impacts patient care, especially when formulating a well-informed treatment plan.<\/p>\n
Francesco Sammartino, whom I had the privilege of working with, took this challenge head-on. Together, we consulted with Frank Yeh at\u00a0the University of Pittsburgh, who suggested using an analytical tool developed in his lab. Frank named it \u201crestricted diffusion imaging\u201d (RDI). We implemented this novel approach and, to our utmost surprise, detected the ablated tissue even one year after the treatment.<\/p>\n
The three panels, A, B, and C, compare conventional imaging (left image) and RDI (right image) at three time-points: before surgery, 24-hours after surgery, and one year after surgery. The open-access link to our full paper, \u201cLongitudinal analysis of structural changes following unilateral focused ultrasound thalamotomy,\u201d is available here:\u00a0https:\/\/bit.ly\/3qSwbDT<\/a><\/p>\n This transformative approach revealed interesting insights and had implications that we will share in our next post of the series.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you are a resident, medical student, or imaging researcher interested in participating in this research, please email Dr. Vibhor Krishna at\u00a0vibhor_krishna@med.unc.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The power of observation in advancing clinical medicine and research is undeniable. To quote DH Lawrence: \u201cWhat the eye doesn\u2019t see,\u00a0and the mind doesn\u2019t know, doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d But how to resolve a conundrum where the mind is convinced that a phenomenon must exist, but the eyes cannot confirm or deny its existence? We encountered one … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44955,"featured_media":2272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recent-publications","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1269\/2022\/02\/Krishna-image-with-headers.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1269\/2022\/02\/Krishna-image-with-headers-265x300.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1269\/2022\/02\/Krishna-image-with-headers-768x869.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1269\/2022\/02\/Krishna-image-with-headers.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1269\/2022\/02\/Krishna-image-with-headers-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"","category_details":[{"name":"Recent Publications","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/category\/recent-publications\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44955"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neurosurgery\/krishnalab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}