Florida man plays guitar while having tumour removed during brain surgery

Florida man Christian Nolen played guitar while having a tumour removed during his brain surgery, Fox News reported.

Nolen, an avid guitar player, was starting to have symptoms due to a tumour on the right frontal lobe of his brain.

The surgery was scheduled to be conducted 10 days after it was discovered and Nolen was surprised when the doctors asked if he’d be willing to remain awake and play the guitar for the procedure.

Ricardo Komotar, MD, director of the brain tumour programme at Sylvester, said, "When a tumour is involving or near a critical part of the brain something that controls the ability to speak or understand language or move we want to do the surgery awake to continually monitor the patient, so you know if you start to violate normal brain functions."

When the patient is asleep, the doctor said, the surgery team can't get feedback.

"The surgeries become much more dangerous because you can take out a tumour that involves normal brain function and cause real harm without knowing it," he said.

Komator said they understood the importance of guitar playing in Nolen's life thus there was "no better way" to monitor his manual dexterity and the effect of the tumour than to have him take up the instrument in the operating room.

Nolen was sedated for the beginning of the open craniotomy but was awakened during the removal part of the two-hour procedure. Once he was informed of what was happening, the care team gave Nolen a guitar and asked him to play.

While removing the tumour, the surgeons continuously monitored Nolen’s hand function

"As we were finishing the case at the very back of the tumour, we noticed that his hand function started to decline," said Komotar.

"The tumour was touching and interfacing with the part of the brain that controls hand movement. Fortunately, we were able to remove the entire tumour and not injure his hand."

Research has proven the benefits of doing procedures with awake anaesthesia instead of deep general anaesthesia.

"Surgery with continuous neurological exam leads to better functional outcomes and fewer neurological deficits," he said.

There are also improvements in discharge and recovery.

"The less anaesthesia you use during your procedure, the better the patient wakes up," he said. "The faster they wake up, the sooner they are up and walking around, and the sooner they go home."