When surgeons were removing a tumour from the most sensitive part of a 10-year-old girl's brain in a Chennai hospital last Wednesday, she was playing her favourite game on her uncle's cellphone. By staying awake, talking and moving her limbs, the girl gave her doctors the confidence that they were on the right track.
The doctors decided to do the surgery by keeping the patient awake and alert. "That way, I will know exactly which areas of your brain control those functions and avoid them," Dr Kumar said.
The awake surgery is done in nearly 2% of brain tumour patients who are adults, but is rare in children, said SIMS Institute of Neurosciences director Dr Suresh Bapu. The patients feel no pain during the surgery since the neurons in the brain don't have pain receptors.
Read more of this in a report by Pushpa Narayan published in Times of India...
