At Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside, lasers are being used to treat brain tumors and epilepsy. The technique also allows for deep-brain stimulation procedures to treat tremors.
Dr. Aristotelis Filippidis, who heads the hospital’s brain tumor program, has been treating tumors deep inside the brain using laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT).
The technology, which Filippidis started using about a year ago, allows him to place a laser near a tumor and use it to stimulate the body’s immune response system to attack the tumor.