Complex Brain Surgery Done When Patient Was Sitting

A six-year-old Mongolian boy successfully underwent a complicated brain surgery at the Sarvodaya Hospital in Faridabad on Monday. The boy had a tumour that was over 5 cm in size. The case was exceptional as the child remained in a sitting position during the six-hour surgery while being unconscious due to a general anaesthetic.

Patient Munkh during operation

A year ago, Monkh was suffering from bouts of headaches and vomiting. The doctors in Mongolia discovered a tumour growing in the middle of his brain, just behind the brain stem. Hence, extracting the tumour from the brain was difficult. Many hospitals in Mongolia turned the patient away; any minor mistake during surgery may have blocked the cerebrospinal fluid channels that surround and protect the brain.

The boy underwent a procedure called a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt to drain the extra cerebrospinal fluid from his brain. To perform this procedure, a small plastic tube was inserted into his head to drain the fluid from his brain and move it to his abdomen, where it could be absorbed. This procedure lowered the procedure and swelling in the brain, giving some extra time for the child to survive. Meanwhile, the parents were advised to take him to India for surgery to remove the tumour.

After the successful operation in India, the parents were overjoyed. “This is like the second birth of my son. I thank the doctors of Sarvodaya Hospital for ensuring that the surgery was successful. I look forward to my son growing up and leading a normal life like any other child,” Baigalmaa Purevdorj, the mother of the child, said.

Speaking of the procedure, Dr Kamal Verma said, “When the boy was presented to us, we examined his condition and realised that the only way we could do the surgery on his head was to place him in a sitting position throughout the procedure. This was the only body posture that could have made it possible for us to reach the tumour inside the brain with our medical instruments. The operation was an extremely risky one, and any complications during surgery would have been fatal. All the risks were explained to the boy’s parents, and they agreed to go ahead to cure him of the tumour growing inside his head.”