Girl 'youngest' to have conscious brain surgery for condition

A teenager has become the world's youngest known patient to have brain surgery to treat a particular blood vessel abnormality, hospital bosses have said.

Tilly Phillips, now 16, was 15 when she underwent the conscious craniotomy procedure at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.

The 12-hour procedure was to resolve an arteriovenous malformation, which is an abnormal tangle of blood vessels that causes seizures and can be fatal.

Tilly, from Warrington, Cheshire, said the condition had felt like a "ticking time bomb" and that her life had been "on hold".

As well as causing seizures, the abnormality was also close to areas of the brain controlling speech, movement and vision.

Surgeons woke Tilly for about 30 minutes so they could map those parts of her brain in real time and protect vital tissue while removing the malformation.

Although she cannot remember being conscious, the medical team said she was coherent and calmly completed picture-naming tasks.

Clinical psychologist Cathy Grant said electrical stimulation briefly stopped Tilly from naming objects, helping surgeons identify tissue that needed to be protected.

Tilly said she thought the sedation and memory problems she experienced afterwards might explain why she could not recall being awake.

She said her memory was "awful" after the operation, initially struggling to recall friends' names and even the names of familiar animals.

Although it has improved, she sometimes still cannot find a word and uses strategies learned through speech and language therapy.

Before surgery, she said she was experiencing about three seizures a day on average.

The trust said follow-up scans confirmed the condition had been successfully treated and her seizures had reduced significantly.

Tilly's mother Clare said she had experienced some non-epileptic episodes during her recovery, which the family believed were related to the operation.

The teenager spent about a week in hospital and completed her GCSE exams at home while recovering.

She has since secured a summer job before planning to continue her studies.

Tilly said having a say in her treatment had helped her cope with the experience.

"I was in control of what was happening, which I really appreciated from my surgeons," she said.

"I feel like I was actually listened to."

Clare described the Alder Hey team as "phenomenal", while Tilly said the surgery had transformed her future.

"I've got my life back," she said.

Alder Hey said its finding that Tilly was the youngest known patient to undergo the procedure was based on published reports.

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