New Delhi: A five-year-old girl from Greater Noida underwent an awake craniotomy surgery for a left perisylvian intraaxial brain tumour at AIIMS Delhi on Thursday and became the world’s youngest child to undergo this procedure.
According to doctors, Akshita Yadav is doing well post-surgery and is likely to be discharged on Monday.
Doctors said that during this complicated brain surgery, the patient is kept awake and alert to ensure that critical areas of the brain are not damaged.
The department of neurosurgery has conducted such surgeries in the past too, but this was a unique case because of the patient’s age. As per internationally published literature till date, such surgeries have been attempted at the age of 8 years, said doctors.
Neurosurgeon Prof Deepak Gupta said the patient had a lesion near the language area on the left side of her brain. “The child is very brave. She cooperated very well and remained pain-free throughout the procedure,” he said.
The child’s parents knew well about the procedure and had mentally prepared her for it. “Prior to the surgery, we had shown the patient some videos, common objects and animals. Later, the same things were shown to her during surgery for identification. She cooperated well,” said Dr Gupta, adding that ice cold saline was used on the brain surface to prevent seizures during the procedure.
Speaking to TOI, Prof Mihir Prakash Pandia from the neuro-anaesthesia department said that getting such cooperation from a small child was unexpected.
Her brain tumour was measured 21.7*21.7*24.4 mm in size, said doctors.
“Nearly 16-18 injections were given to the patient to block the nerves,” said Dr Pandia, adding that the surgery was three hours long, including the time taken by neuroanaesthetists to give local anaesthesia to the child. A team of seven doctors was involved in the surgery, along with paramedics and technicians.
Akshita’s father, Rakesh Yadav, a software engineer, said that his daughter was shifted from the ICU to the ward on Friday afternoon and is doing well. “Since her tumour was in the speech area, we were advised to go for an awake craniotomy as the entire tumour cannot be removed in normal surgery. We decided to take the risk and prepared our daughter. The doctors at AIIMS supported us and ensured good results,” he said.
Akshita was diagnosed with a brain tumour in August 2020. “She fell down while walking with me. She was taken to a local doctor but he didn’t identify the reason and sent her back after prescribing some medicines. This episode had repeated several times. Then we took her to a hospital and got to know about the brain tumour,” he said, adding that she sometimes had 3-4 episodes of seizures in a week.
Akshita spoke to TOI with confidence and a clear voice. She said that she didn’t feel any fear when surgery was being conducted.
“I will go to school in two weeks. Doctor uncle has advised me to take rest till then,” she said, adding that she is excited to celebrate her birthday on March 22.
The department conducted the same surgery three years ago on 23-year-old Yukti Agarwal, who recited Hanuman Chalisa during her awake craniotomy surgery for her brain tumour. She is doing well, said the doctors.
