Awake brain tumor surgery, also known as intraoperative brain mapping, is a procedure performed while the patient is awake but sedated. This allows the neurosurgeon to stimulate a part of the brain during the surgery to identify important functional areas to avoid.
This procedure can be used to remove tumors that are often considered inoperable due to size and/or location or those that have spread throughout the brain and don’t have clear borders, such as some types of glioma. Awake brain surgery can shrink these tumors.
This type of surgery is not for everyone, and it has some limitations, including:
The patient’s general health (e.g., awake brain surgery is not performed in patients with some types of sleep apnea and those who are obese)
Whether the patient will be able to remain calm during the procedure and respond to the neurosurgeon
If you visit Dr. Baker, he diagnoses the patient’s symptoms thoroughly and then suggests whether a patient needs “awake brain surgery” or not.