The Children’s recently celebrated the opening of the first Intra-Operative MRI in the history of Canadian pediatric hospitals. This state-of-the-art piece of equipment, together with an ultra modern operating room, forms The Children’s new Pediatric Interventional Brain Suite, which will be transferred to the new Children’s once it is built. 

Making this project a reality required the support of several important partners, including Opération Enfant Soleil (with a gift of $5 million), The Sarah Cook Fund (with a gift of $1 million) and Hydro-Québec (with a gift of $1 million). With the support of his committee and his network, Sean Finn, Chairman of our Annual Corporate Campaign, raised an additional $1 million for the project, whose total cost was more than $10 million.

On behalf of all the young patients who will benefit from this project, a huge thank-you to Opération Enfant Soleil and to all our partners.

On October 19, 2009, young Émilie was the first patient to benefit from the new equipment. Read her story.

Exactly one week after surgery, Émilie proudly took part in the official unveiling ceremony of our new intra-operative MRI suite. She will always be remembered as the very first patient to have benefitted from our new intra-operative MRI suite. She is pictured here with Ms. Ginette Charest, President and executive director of Opération Enfant Soleil, (centre).

Why does The Children's need an Intra-Operative MRI?

Conventionally, surgeons based their surgical plans on static pre-operative images. After surgery, young patients were sent to recovery and, two days later, they need an MRI to determine whether or not doctors were able to successfully remove, for example, every fragment of a cancerous brain tumour. The Intra-Operative MRI allows surgeons to take that image while the patient is still on the operating table.

Neurosurgery is extremely delicate and can often take more than 12 hours. The risks are high and there is very little margin for error. During neurosurgery, a “brain shift” often occurs, which cannot be predicted with static images. Without the iMRI, our specialists could only estimate what that shift had been, and perform the operation accordingly.

A young child's brain is extremely delicate. The Intra-Operative MRI will allow our professionals to take images of their patients during surgery, enabling them to see the impact of the “brain shift” immediately. This will provide them with the information they need to ensure that critical areas of the brain are not disturbed.

The Children's has had a strong presence and tradition of neurosurgery for nearly 50 years, with a large team of three neurosurgeons for the past several years.

The Intra-Operative MRI will:

• Provide the top Neurosurgeons in Quebec with today’s tools.
• Improve treatment for cancer patients.
• Significantly reduce the current wait time for an MRI.
• Improve research in premature babies.
• Improve research in Neurosurgery, Neurology, Radiology and Anaesthesiology.
• Improve research in Autism.
• Improve understanding of the chemical make-up of certain tumours.
• Find the precise border between the tumour and eloquent cerebral regions for both surgical and beam therapies.
• Improve the study, diagnosis and treatment of patients with Epilepsy, Autism, Cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders.

 Our children deserve the best care available.

Thank you for caring.