Doctors kept speaking with the patient while performing the brain surgery (Representational Image)
In a first-of-its-kind surgery in Bihar, a tumour was removed from the brain of a 21-year-old man merely with local anaesthesia. The operation was performed by a team of doctors at AIIMS in Patna, an attending doctor said.
Rohit Kumar, a resident of Muzaffarpur, was admitted to AIIMS in Patna with complaints of severe headache and fits. His MRI reports showed a tumour of about five cm diameter. The operation to remove the tumour was done on September 21.
"It took us nearly four hours to remove the tumour. The patient is showing very good progress and we are planning to discharge him in a couple of days," Saquib Siddiqui, associate professor in the department of neurosurgery at the hospital, told news agency PTI.
"We decided to opt for local anaesthesia since that enabled us to keep the patient awake while the surgery is performed. Although this type of surgical intervention requires a very high degree of skill and technical knowhow it is much safer as far as patients are concerned," said Dr Siddiqui, who headed the team of doctors.
He said while performing the surgery by this method, the doctors kept interacting with the patient which helped them receive feedback in real time as to whether the operation was heading in the right direction. If the patient would have been unconscious, it would not be possible for the surgeon to get any real-time feedback.
"While operating upon this young man, we kept asking him as to whether he felt any weakness and numbness in his right arm and leg since the tumour affected that part of the brain which controlled movement of these limbs. In the event of any adverse feedback, we would have stopped. Thankfully, it all went off well," Dr Siddiqui said.
"We hope our effort, which has accomplished the first surgery of this kind in Bihar, would instill confidence among the people of the state and they would come to the facility in larger numbers," he said.
Set up in 2012, AIIMS, Patna is located on the outskirts of the city.