Baptist Health Achieves Milestone with 100th High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HiFU) Case to Treat Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s Disease
MIAMI, FL – May 3, 2023 – Baptist Health is celebrating a milestone following its 100th High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HiFU) procedure to treat patients with essential tremor and tremor-dominant Parkinson’s Disease. High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound, or more commonly known as HiFU, offers an incisionless outpatient procedure for patients with essential tremor or Parkinson’s disease who don’t get acceptable tremor relief from medications. Justin Sporrer, M.D., neurosurgeon and director of functional neurosurgery at Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute, performed the procedure on the 100th patient.
“I consider this both an honor and a privilege to have successfully treated 100 patients using HiFU here at Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute. By using this innovative technology to treat those with essential tremors and Parkinson’s Disease, we have truly been able to provide patients a higher quality of life, free of tremors due to these movement disorders”, shared Dr. Sporrer.
“I look forward to continue treating hundreds of other patients who suffer from tremors from the South Florida community, and beyond”.
This procedure is conducted on appropriate patients who have abnormal electrical activity deep in the brain causing essential tremors. HiFU directs over 1,000 beams of ultrasound waves through the skull and directly to the problem area with extreme precision. The combined energy of these sound waves increases significantly where they meet, enabling them to stun and destroy lesions that are disrupting the normal circuitry of the brain and causing the abnormal electrical activity.
Patients receive the treatment while inside an MRI scanner. This allows the doctor to target the exact area in the brain with abnormal electrical activity. During the procedure, patients are awake and able to assist in evaluating response, including tremor improvement and potential side effects. Patients experience immediate tremor improvement post procedure. This is a non-invasive, outpatient procedure that does not require general anesthesia.
Baptist Health will be offering HiFU treatment at Marcus Neuroscience Institute, located on the Boca Raton Regional Hospital campus, in fall of 2023.
About Baptist Health South Florida
Baptist Health South Florida is the largest healthcare organization in the region, with 12 hospitals, more than 27,000 employees, 4,000 physicians and 200 outpatient centers, urgent care facilities and physician practices spanning across Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Baptist Health has internationally renowned centers of excellence in cancer, cardiovascular care, orthopedics and sports medicine, and neurosciences. In addition, it includes Baptist Health Medical Group; Baptist Health Quality Network; and Baptist Health Care On Demand, a virtual health platform. A not-for-profit organization supported by philanthropy and committed to its faith-based charitable mission of medical excellence, Baptist Health has been recognized by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and by Ethisphere as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies.For more information, visit BaptistHealth.net/Newsroom and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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