Dagmar Turner played the violin while doctors removed a brain tumor from him. – King’s College Hospital
After undergoing a craniectomy under anesthesia, Dagmar Turner was awakened by the doctors. While surgeons cut her brain tumor with a scalpel, this 53-year-old British violinist played Mahler and Gershwin – a technique for real-time verification that the areas of the brain responsible for hand movement were not affected during this delicate procedure. According to King’s College Hospital in London, 90% of the tumor has been successfully removed.
A member of the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra in the south of England, Turner was diagnosed in 2013 with a slow-growing tumor. She asked to be operated on when the tumor developed. Before the operation, doctors had mapped the active areas of her brain while she was playing.
“Reinstate my orchestra very soon”
The idea of playing the musician while waking her up in the middle of the operation was aimed in particular at protecting important cells located in the right frontal lobe of her brain. This area, located right next to the operated one, controls, among other things, the left hand, essential for playing the instrument.
“The idea of not being able to play anymore broke my heart,” said Dagmar Turner, who thanked the medical team for doing “everything possible”, even going so far as to predict in which position to operate it so that ‘she can play. “We do about 400 resections (tumor removal) a year, which often involves waking patients up for language tests,” said surgeon responsible for Operation Keyoumars Ashkan, “but it was the first time I played a patient an instrument. ” “Thanks to them, I hope to be able to return to my orchestra very soon,” said the violinist, who left the hospital three days after her operation.
