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Surgeons now use life-saving bypass technique in brain tumour surgery.

Everyone’s heard of heart bypasses. But now, interestingly, brain bypass’ operations have also been carried out on patients with life threatening conditions.

The technique – currently, only available abroad-is is expected to help many who suffer from brain tumours or aneurysms.

Just like in a heart bypass operation, the blood supply to the brain is rerouted around the problem area through a piece of grafted vein.

Using the particular method, the bypass can be done without interrupting the blood flow-reducing the risk of stroke.

Christos Tolias, who heads a surgical team at king’s Collage Hospital, London, is one of the few neurosurgeons who have performed such a procedure.

The method involves taking a piece of vein from the patient’s leg and using it to make a new pathway around the tumour or aneurysm, so the blood flow is maintained.

After removing a piece of bone from the skull, the surgeon attaches two pieces of vein either side of the arterial weakness and they are stitched using a metal ring.

A hollow tube is slid into the veins and a laser is used to cut a hole in the artery where the vein is attached. Blood starts flowing into each of the grafts, which are temporarily clipped at the other end.

The two halves of the vein grafts are then stitched together and the clips removed so the blood flows through.

The aneurysm or tumour can then be clipped off and taken out of the brain’s blood circulation. It’s like a piece of hosepipe that takes the blood around the problem-just like a graft is used in a heart bypass,” Tolias said.