Overcoming fear and anxiety during awake resection of brain tumours: family support can be pivotal to a successful outcome.
Patient anxiety and fear about an awake craniotomy can affect the patient's choice about having an operation despite comprehensive pre-operative counselling. We report three cases in which a family member came into theatre during the procedure to support the patient during surgery. All three cases, which involved intra-operative cortical and subcortical stimulations and intra-operative patient testing, were successfully completed with major tumour resections and no post-operative complications. We suggest that family support should be considered in patients who have extreme fear and anxiety about awake surgery.
Division of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK. ian.whittle@ed.ac.uk
Ian R
IR
Whittle
Jia X
JX
Lim
D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000517:prevention & control*; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000601:surgery; D016292:Procedural Sedation / Q000523:psychology*; D003399:Craniotomy / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D012640:Seizures / Q000209:etiology; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014851:Wakefulness