Dr. Mitesh Shah, neurosurgeon
Riley Children’s Health
Indiana University Health has had recent successes in the field of neurology that would have been virtually impossible not long ago. Tell us about them.
Yes, we’ve done several focused ultrasound procedures that corrected tremors in patients who had been unable to write, hold a drink, or use a laptop. And a particularly dramatic case that happened for us was one of a young girl who came in with a blow dart in her nasal cavity that was embedded in her skull. It had nearly pierced her brain. We had to assemble a team. It was immediately an extraordinarily tricky situation because the dart was right next to her vertebral artery. It wasn’t a procedure that anybody who didn’t have deep familiarity with skull base anatomy, as well as specific equipment at their disposal, could have possibly done. My team of nurses and surgical technicians worked through the night, and we were able to provide this child with an extremely good outcome. Obviously, a blow dart in the skull is not a common occurrence. But because we’ve invested so much into our specialty centers, we have the right kind of infrastructure, both in personnel and equipment, to tackle complex cases, whether commonplace or unusual.
