Man stays awake during brain surgery

[Glenn]

More science.

This one creeps me out a bit.

Australian has 'world-first' conscious brain surgery

Mon Sep 24, 5:20 AM ET

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian man was conscious and spoke to his medical team during life-saving brain surgery in what doctors are claiming as a world-first procedure with cutting-edge technology.

John James said it was a strange experience to hear the doctors and nurses talking to each other as he lay on the operating table with a 1.5-centimetre (half-an-inch) hole in his head.

But he said he was confident throughout the April surgery to remove an aneurysm from his brain, which threatened to burst and kill him.

"The nurses looking after me, they were talking to me," the retired bus driver told a press conference in Canberra. "I could only see bits because I couldn't move my head at all."

"I wasn't worried whatsoever.... I was quite confident all the way through."

Doctors asked James to read the words and numbers on flashcards shown to him during the surgery so they knew they were not affecting his vision.

The team believes the combination of the technology and the small size of the hole in James's head, as well as the fact he was conscious throughout the operation, makes it a world first.

"As far as I'm aware reading the literature, this kind of thing done as a package has never been done before," Canberra Hospital neurosurgeon Vini Khurana said.

"So we were pleased. The result was obviously very good."

Virtual reality software, which created a three-dimensional image of James's brain, was used to allow the team to rehearse the operation to drain the blood from the aneurysm.

During the surgery, Khurana had a 3-D image of the brain projected onto one side of his eyepiece. On the other side he could see a close-up view of the brain through a microscope.

An ultrasound probe was also used to ensure that no more blood was flowing through the aneurysm after the drainage was completed.

"The technology we used was quite extraordinary," Khurana said.

"It's like GPS navigation that you use in the car being injected into your sunglasses as you drive."

James, who has since turned 78, initially went to the doctor because of problems with his vision and dizzy spells and scans revealed the potentially deadly aneurysm.

Surgery was required but because the aneurysm was behind his right eye the operation could have blinded him, which is why the doctors wanted him awake during the procedure.

The great-grandfather, who was sent home two days after the operation, said he felt fine after the surgery.

"I had to sit for an hour to make sure everything was alright," he said. "I just came back to normal after that."

[Uncle Mxy]

It's just like the Buckaroo Banzai movie.

"Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."

[UxKa]

Whoever wrote that article is retarded. A very high percentage of brain surgeries are done while the patient is awake, and they have to be done that way. Why? Everybody's brain is different, the area that operates lets say speech is not in the same place from person to person. The doctors need the patient to be awake because as they are poking around the brain, the patient needs to inform the doctors of what function they are poking. The brain also doesnt have any pain nerves, so all they have to do is some local anesthesia to the skin and skull. This surgery may have been a first for other reasons, but definitely not because the patient was awake.

[WTFchris]

^I was going to say, I thought they were pretty much done that way. Then I decided not to say it because I likely saw them that way on TV. But I thought most of them were done awake.

[Glenn]

Yahoo must be asleep at the wheel too, because that article has been on their front page all day long.

[Fool]

I think that would be fun.

"Yeah, now I can't see. Oh, ok that's better."
"Now my mouth tastes like pudding. Keep doing whatever it is you are doing."
"Oh! Hey there! That's not exactly a scalpel in my pocket Ms. Brain Surgeon."

[Big Swami]

I saw a special about brain injuries that really freaked me out a while back. There was a guy in England who got in a wreck and hit his head, and ever since then he lost the ability to care much for his wife or kid. He got out of the hospital and suddenly he lost his family and ended up with a couple of annoying roommates who wouldn't leave him alone. The wife said she couldn't leave the kid with him anymore because he'd just let him play in the street, jump in the pool alone, whatever. Guy seemed nice enough, but he just couldn't bring himself to care about his family anymore.

My cousin's children were in a bad car wreck a year or so ago and something similar happened to one of them - kid's personality changed overnight.

[WTFchris]

Maybe all the Lions fans should get in a car and erase their feelings for the franchise...

[b-diddy]

dr green on ER had this done YEARS ago.

[Fool]

Then he died.