Sabah’s first brain surgery on an awake patient

 

The medical team which carried out the operation on a 50-year-old woman who had been experiencing headaches since October. (Sabah health department pic)

PETALING JAYA: The first brain surgery on a fully conscious patient has been carried out in Sabah.

Sabah health director Dr Rose Nani Mudin said the operation was done at Queen Elizabeth 2 Hospital in Kota Kinabalu in collaboration with Universiti Malaysia Sabah on Thursday.

The patient was a 50-year-old woman who had been experiencing headaches since October last year.

She was diagnosed with ‘multiple meningioma’ on the left side of her brain,” she said, Bernama reported.

Doctors had begun making preparations since November, she said.

The “awake craniotomy” was conducted by a team comprising neurosurgeons Dr M Sofan Zenian and Dr Hezry Abu Hasan, neurosurgical anaesthesiologist Dr Yeap Boon Tat and senior consultant neurosurgeon Dr Liew Boon Seng from Sungai Buloh Hospital.

The decision to use the technique was made to help the patient live a better quality of life, Rose said.

The procedure was introduced in the early 2000s and had been used since 2010 at Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital, Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Sungai Buloh Hospital and Sultanah Aminah Hospital. - FMT