Polish girl woken up during brain operation
PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp
05.01.2015 16:39
Doctors in Katowice asked patient questions half way through a delicate operation.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The patient, 19-year-old Iga Jasica, was under the influence of anesthetic while doctors were trying to remove a tumor from her brain.
They decided to wake her up and ask her a series of questions to see whether any part of her brain had been damaged. All of this while her cranium was still open.
Although she cannot remember having the conversation, she was asked to move her arms and to identify a few pictures, including one of a cat. “At the sight of the photo, I almost screamed: ‘a kitten!’ Because I like cats, I'm a cat person,” Jasica told Polish tabloid Super Express.
The questioning was essential to identify how much of the tumour the doctors could remove.
“The tumor was in a part of the brain which bordered on areas related to motor movement, vision or speech. The patient had to indicate that all these areas were functioning properly,” explained Professor Dawid Larysz, a neurosurgeon at the Katowice hospital. (rg)