• Question: how long does brain surgery take and what complications does it have

    Asked by hannah B to Iain, Hayley on 25 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Iain Bethune

      Iain Bethune answered on 25 Jun 2015:


      Depends what type of brain surgery. For example, taking a small biopsy of brain tissue might be able to be done via keyhole surgery and would take less than an hour. More extensive surgery, for example removing a large tumour that has spread into several regions of the brain might take many hours as large sections of the skull would need to be removed, and the infected tissues removed very carefully so as not to damage healthy brain tissue.

      The main complications that could occur are:

      * Damage to healthy tissue causing impaired brain function
      * Bleeding / swelling inside the skull during or after survey causing compression of the brain
      * Infection of the surgery site

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