The First Awake Clipping of a Brain Aneurysm in Malaysia and in ASEAN: Achieving International Standards

World-renowned neurosurgeon, Professor Saleem Abdulrauf, has been featured in several medical journals for his successful “Awake Brain Aneurysm Surgery”. Regarded as a “world first”, this surgery, involves clipping un-ruptured brain aneurysms while patients are awake. Only one or two neurosurgery centres worldwide are capable of this. Performing the surgery while the patient is awake lowers risks of brain ischemia with neurological deficits and ventilator associated morbidities. The technique has been viewed as the start of a new era in brain surgery. Physicians from the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) School of Medical Sciences, at the Health Campus in Kelantan, headed by Professor Dr Zamzuri Idris (neurosurgeon) and Dr Wan Mohd Nazaruddin Wan Hassan (neuroanaesthetist), recently performed a similar procedure, the first such surgery in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. The USM team can therefore be considered to be among the first few to have done this brain surgery and achieved successful patient outcomes.