- Patient had come to the Neurosurgery OPD with the problem of frequent seizures
- Decision taken to perform ‘awake craniotomy’
- Patient remained conscious during the operation
Chronicle Reporter, Bhopal
An ‘awake craniotomy’ operation was performed for the brain tumor of a 28 year old male from district Buxar, Bihar in the Neurosurgery Department of AIIMS Bhopal. The patient was completely conscious and even talking during the entire operation.
The patient’s brain tumor was very close to the motor area and there was a high possibility of developing weakness if operated under general anesthesia, so the operation was extremely challenging. The patient had come to the Neurosurgery OPD with the problem of frequent seizures. He was admitted to the hospital for complete evaluation. An inter-departmental meeting was organized by Prof. Amit Agarwal, Dr. Adesh Srivastava, Dr. Sumit Raj and Dr. Pradeep Chouksey and it was decided to perform awake craniotomy to reduce the risk of weakness of arms and legs.
Dr. Sumitraj along with Dr. Amol Mittal and Dr. Ranjeet performed this operation. The patient was conscious during the surgery. The tumor was seen after craniotomy. When the tumor was taken out, the patient was asked to play the piano. There was continuous conversation with the patient during the procedure. At the end of the procedure the patient was even moving his limbs. The anesthesia team played an important role in this operation which included Dr. Ashutosh Kaushal and Dr. Anupama. Executive Director of AIIMS Bhopal, Prof. (Dr.) Ajay Singh has congratulated the entire team for this achievement.
Awake craniotomy is an intracranial surgical procedure, in which the patient is deliberately kept awake during the surgery for mapping and resection of the wound. Over the past few years, this procedure has become increasingly popular and its results are even better.
