Fluorescent Light Causes Brain Tumor Cells to Glow for Surgery

Neurosurgeons say they have harnessed the power of fluorescent light to illuminate a brain tumor so the entire growth can be removed. A new report describes a case in which a patient with glioblastoma swallowed a pill, called 5-ALA, and was taken to surgery about four hours later. The medication attached itself to tumor cells, causing them to glow brightly. Once the skull was opened, the doctors focused a blue light on the tumor, which gave the cancerous cells a pink glow, so they could differentiate malignant tissue from healthy tissue.

“This is a very, very good thing,” says study author Mitchel S. Berger, MD, FAANS, FACS, chairman of neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco. “In this case, we just happened to notice we could see evidence of the tumor spreading along the way of the ventricles [a communicating network of brain cavities], which showed we could see tumor dissemination.”

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