Pittsburgh, June 27, 2025 -- The Joseph C. Maroon UPMC MRI-Guided Focused Ultrasound (FUS) Unit was dedicated June 27, at UPMC Presbyterian marking a paradigm shift in precision brain surgery, opening a whole new era of minimally invasive treatment for such things as Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, essential tremor and more.
Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive therapeutic technology utilizing ultrasonic energy to target tissues deep in the body without incision or radiation. It combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with ultrasound to identify and target specific areas of the brain to be treated in real time with immediate confirmation on the effectiveness of the treatment.
With focused ultrasound an acoustic lens is used to concentrate multiple intersecting beams of ultrasound on a single target deep in the brain with extreme precision and accuracy up to 1 – 1.5 mm in diameter or as large as 1 – 1.5 cm in diameter. The individual beams pose no danger to surrounding brain tissue, only effecting their power at the target point.
The procedure takes approximately 45 minutes and is performed on an outpatient basis. It requires no incisions with minimal discomfort or complications, if any.
The FUS suite at UPMC Presbyterian is named after Joseph Maroon, MD, vice chair of neurological surgery and Heindl Scholar in Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, a long-time proponent, innovator and visionary of minimally invasive surgery of the brain and spine.
Sandy Rader, President of UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, joined Dr. Maroon and department chair Robert Friedlander, MD, along with a gathering of other faculty and dignitaries to celebrate the inaugural event.
The first procedure performed in the unit was carried out by Jorge González-Martínez, MD, PhD, vice-chair of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery and director of the department’s Epilepsy & Movement Disorders Program, on an 81-year-old man with a long history of debilitating essential tremor.
