Calgary, AB (September 20, 2004) - The Intraoperative MR System provides surgeons with exquisitely detailed, 3-D magnetic resonance (MR) images during an operation, so they can actually see if their surgery is successful — if they have completely removed a patient's brain tumour, for example.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Garnette Sutherland, at the University of Calgary-Foothills Hospital Medical Centre, has won the prestigious $25,000 Manning Award of Distinction, sponsored by CanWest Global Communications Inc., for his innovation that is revolutionizing neurosurgery.

Dr. Sutherland, former chief of neurosurgery at the U of C, had long envisioned a technology that would eliminate the need to re-do critical surgical procedures, such as operations inside the brain. Neurosurgeons sometimes have to perform such follow-up operations because, until he developed the Intraoperative MR System, they had to rely on pre- and post-operative images to see if their surgery did the job — in completely removing a patient's brain tumour, for example.

The system, developed in collaboration with Dr. John Saunders, then with the National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Biodiagnostics, enables surgeons to obtain highly detailed, 3-D images of their surgical work at any time during the operation. "We now have pictures that show the exact way in which we're operating," Dr. Sutherland says. "It abolishes the problem of re-do surgery."

The Intraoperative MR System includes a powerful, high magnetic field strength MR machine safely suspended from the ceiling. This makes the entire system movable and more cost-efficient for hospitals and other institutions. When the surgeon isn't using the MR machine in the operating room, it can be automatically moved to another room where radiologists can use it for diagnosing patients.

The system includes specially designed non-magnetic clamps to hold a patient's head still, as well as a hydraulically controlled, non-magnetic, titanium operating table to precisely position each patient.

Dr. Sutherland's innovation "is changing the face of medicine," says Dr. Roland Auer, Professor of Pathology, Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary. "It is no longer necessary for the patient to get a post-operative image to see if the surgery was successful in achieving its goal . . . It truly raises the standard of medical practice."

The commercial version of the system, the US$2.5-million iMotion Intraoperative MR System, is built and sold by Innovative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems Inc. (www.imris.com) of Winnipeg, in partnership with Siemens. Under Dr. Saunders' leadership, IMRIS has landed its first-ever commercial sales of this system, including one to a hospital affiliated with prestigious Harvard University. IMRIS is negotiating other sales in the U.S., China, Singapore and Europe.

Dr. Sutherland and his colleagues have used the Intraoperative MR System to monitor surgery in more than 550 patients. This year, Dr. Sutherland received $10.5-million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to develop a MR-compatible surgical robotic system called "neuroArm."

Since 1982, the annual Manning Awards program (www.manningawards.ca) has encouraged and rewarded leading Canadian innovators with more than $3 million in prize money. This year's four major winners, being announced throughout September, will share a total of $145,000. All will be honoured at the annual gala awards dinner Oct. 1 in Vancouver.