Suzanne LeBlang uses MRgFUS to treat uterine fibroids

Pioneering New Noninvasive Surgery

Boca Raton radiologist Suzanne LeBlang, M.D. ’91, is a leading practitioner of magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), a new technology that could become a major, noninvasive alternative to uterine-fibroid surgery.

LeBlang performed the first FDAapproved MRgFUS case and has done 175 uterine-fibroid procedures, more than any other physician in the country to date. The procedure
employs a device that delivers highintensity, focused ultrasound-generated heat that destroys uterine fibroids, leaving surrounding tissue unscathed.

“It’s a completely outpatient and noninvasive surgery, with no recovery time and no incisions in the body,” says LeBlang, who’s a member of University MRI & Diagnostic Imaging Centers, located in Boca Raton. “The procedures take about two to four hours and are done using conscious sedation.”

A neuroradiologist who’s a senior member of the American Society of Neuroradiology,
LeBlang was recently featured in a Forbes article in which a reporter watched as she used focused ultrasound to ablate a fibroid tumor.

It’s a procedure that could potentially become huge but is currently being closely scrutinized. “All the insurance companies are now at a crossroads as to whether or not they’re going to provide coverage for this procedure,” LeBlang relates.

When she’s not involved with focused ultrasound, roughly 60 percent of LeBlang’s practice is devoted to neuroradiology cases focusing on the head and neck.

“I love what I do,” says LeBlang, who credits Miller School instructors Robert Quencer, M.D., Evelyn Sklar, M.D. ’80, and Steven Falcone M.D. ’87, M.B.A. ’03, with spurring her
interest in neuroradiology.

Married for 20 years to architect Stuart Brenner, LeBlang is the mother of Stanley, 13, Harry, 11, and Jackie, 9. LeBlang serves as a voluntary faculty member at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University. She lectures first and second-year medical students on pulmonary radiology, cardiac radiology, and neuroradiology.