Hyderabad, July 2022: Surgeons at Kamineni Hospitals, Hyderabad, successfully performed an Awake brain surgery on Venkanna, a 59-year-old farmer, hailing from Mansurabad, Telangana district. He has come to the hospital with a complaint of left upper limb weakness since 3 months. After clinical investigations surgeons found motor area lesion and after performing an MRI they came to the conclusion that the patient requires high end and complex awake craniotomy procedure for complete excision of lesion.

A sort of procedure on the brain that is carried out while you are awake and conscious is referred to as awake brain surgery or awake craniotomy. Some brain (neurological) diseases, such as some brain tumours or epileptic seizures, are treated via awake brain surgery.

“Awake craniotomy is a type of craniotomy that allows neurosurgeons to remove tumours in important I.e, eloquent areas of the brain. In eloquent areas, any small damage to brain parenchyma will lead to devastating consequences like loss of motor function or speech function according to areas involved motor or speech area respectively,” said Dr.Ramesh, Senior Neuro Surgeon , Kamineni Hospitals – LB Nagar, Hyderabad.

He further added Awake craniotomy is useful in tumor surgery, epilepsy surgery and deep brain stimulation. It’s hercules task for an anesthetist to maintain no pain (analgesia) without sedation (anaesthesia.). In this case the major complications are seizures which are sometimes so serious will require abandon the procedure. After thorough evaluation and consent, he underwent awake craniotomy, excision of lesion in right motor area using Neuronavigation and intra op nerve monitoring. The patient had seizures on the opening skull which were managed with ice cold saline. Once seizures decreased, the procedure and near total removal was done, he concluded.

Experienced team of Surgeon, Anaesthetist, with world class equipment of NeuroNavigation, High end microscope helped the patient to undergo awake craniotomy and near total excision of lesion.

Dr Ramesh, Senior Neuro Surgeon, Dr Rajeshwar, Chief Anaesthesist, along with Dr Lakshmi Priyanka and Nursing team participated in the surgery.