Five-year-old becomes youngest patient to undergo ‘awake craniotomy’ at AIIMS Delhi

New Delhi: Doctors at AIIMS, Delhi successfully performed a brain tumour surgery on a five-year-old girl while keeping her in a conscious state during the operation with the hospital claiming that she was the youngest patient in the world to undergo such a procedure.

The procedure termed as ‘awake craniotomy’ (conscious sedation technique) surgery for left perisylvian intraaxial brain tumour was performed on January 4, AIIMS said in a statement.

The child presented with a history of seizures and her brain MRI was done which showed a tumour in the left side of her brain adjacent to speech/language area, it said.

The surgery lasted three hours, including time taken for giving local anaesthesia to the child by neuroanaesthetists.