High honor for Bernese neurosurgeon

The European Lecture award is not presented every year. It is given to individuals who have made a decisive contribution to the field of neurosurgery through their many years of research and development work. Physician, researcher, explorer, and inventor Prof. Andreas Raabe will speak on the topic of «Knowledge, wisdom, technique, technology, and the quest for near zero morbidity».

In neurosurgery, the goal of avoiding complications is a top priority. Even the smallest mistakes during brain and nerve tract surgery can have dramatic consequences. The aim is therefore to achieve a complication rate of close to zero. Andreas Raabe has made a decisive contribution to this quest with two inventions. Prof. Dr. med. Jürgen Beck, Medical Director of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University Medical Center Freiburg, sums up his colleague's achievement as follows: «ICG-assisted angiography and dynamic mapping have significantly improved the work of surgeons by providing them with an ‘extra hand’ and an ‘extra eye’. The new tools are so intuitive to use that surgeons can easily integrate them into their work.»

The continuous improvement of neurosurgery and thus patient safety is based on the four pillars of «knowledge», «wisdom», «technique» and «technology». According to Andreas Raabe, these contribute to the continuous development of the medical field. Maintaining knowledge by refreshing what has been learned and acquiring new knowledge is a central task for surgeons. In times of information overload, new approaches are essential. Here, as in the operating room, technology can contribute to improving quality. A new software principle for medical learning is therefore also the subject of a current research project at Inselspital, the University Hospital of Bern. However, technological progress does not replace manual skills. The importance of surgical technique is and remains a cornerstone of neurosurgery – as is the wisdom that, based on experience and what has been learned, should focus on the future.

Andreas Raabe's particular contribution to neurosurgery lies in his constant pursuit of solutions to practical issues and problems relating to patient safety. Andreas Raabe is responsible for the invention and market-ready development of dynamic, continuous mapping using a probe during neurosurgical brain operations. This involves a special probe that is capable of indicating a safe distance from the motor pathway tissue during the surgical removal of tumor tissue. If the surgeon comes too close to the intact motor pathway during the resection of tumor tissue, a warning tapping sound is emitted. More severe movement disorders due to unintentional injury to healthy brain tissue during surgery on this specific type of tumor have been halved from 10% to 5% of cases with the help of the probe.

Another invention is radiation-free vascular imaging (indocyanine angiography) during the resection of aneurysms. It helps to identify suboptimal results during surgery, thereby preventing strokes and/or incomplete aneurysm clipping. This method has also improved patient safety worldwide and helped to reduce the complication rate from 10% to 3%.