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The following sounds like it'd be a "natural" to make a pallidotomy even safer then it already is... Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters Health) -- Magnets may soon help neurosurgeons perform delicate operations on the brain with less risk of complications. At a press conference on Tuesday, neurosurgeons at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, announced a medical first: on December 17th, they used a magnet-tipped flexible catheter to take a tissue biopsy from a brain tumor in a 31-year-old man. The new technique, the result of over a decade of research, allows the surgeon to follow a curved pathway to reach targeted areas of the brain. This helps in maneuvering around vital brain areas, such as those involved in speech or vision, instead of going through them, as is the case with rigid surgical instruments. Describing the magnet-guided technique, Dr. Ralph Dacey told Reuters Health that ``you can push a piece of cooked spaghetti, but it's better to pull it.'' Before the procedure, surgeons mapped out a predetermined, nonlinear pathway for the flexible catheter through the brain. ''We chose sites that we wanted to avoid,'' he explained. The Magnetic Surgery System, a product of St. Louis-based Stereotaxis Inc., uses external magnetic fields to direct the magnet-tipped catheter the target area in the brain along the route planned by the surgeon. ``The objective of the biopsy in this case was to specifically design chemotherapy and radiation therapy,'' Dacey said. ``The patient is now home and doing well,'' he added. ``We've always used our muscle power'' in neurosurgery, Dacey said. ``Now we're using magnetic power.'' Dacey plans to perform a total of five surgeries using the Magnetic Surgery System in clinical trials before submitting the device for Food and Drug Administration approval.