title: The Unforgettable Neurosurgical Operations of Musicians in the Last Century.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There has been no study of craniotomies of famous musicians throughout history. This subject was investigated.
  
  
  METHODS
  The key search words were "neurosurgery and music" and the names of composers. We used digital catalogs such as PubMed as well as university libraries.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 4 musicians from the twentieth century with different neurosurgical diseases: Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin, Clara Haskil, and Pat Martino.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Neurosurgical operations affected the musical careers and lives of mentioned musicians and two of them died. Neurosurgeons can understand the effect of limited diagnostic tools such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography at the time on the poor outcome of 2 musicians.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health, Institut für Forschung in der Operativen Medizin, Campus Köln-Merheim, Universität Witten/Herdecke, Köln, Germany. Electronic address: elena.gasenzer@uni-wh.de.
authors.forename: Elena Romana
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Gasenzer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Medical Faculty, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, Rize, Turkey. Electronic address: ayhankanat@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Ayhan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kanat
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health, Universität Witten/Herdecke, Campus Neuruppin, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Edmund
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Neugebauer
mesh_terms: D003399:Craniotomy / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000266:history; D005197:Famous Persons; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000266:history; D009146:Music / Q000266:history*; D019635:Neurosurgical Procedures / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000266:history*; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000266:history*
keywords: Clara Haskil; Craniotomy; George Gershwin; History of neurosurgery; Maurice Ravel; Musician; Pat Martino; Traumatic brain injury; Tumor