A tumour was removed from the brain of a 21-year-old man with local anaesthesia at AIIMS, Patna, an attending doctor said.

Saquib Siddiqui, associate professor in the department of neurosurgery at the hospital, told PTI, "It took us nearly four hours to remove the tumour. The patient is showing very good progress and we are planning to discharge him in a couple of days".

He claimed this was the first surgery of its kind in Bihar. The patient, a resident of Muzaffarpur, was admitted to AIIMS, Patna recently with complaints of severe headache and fits. His MRI reports showed a tumour of about five cm diameter, which was removed on September 21.

"We decided to opt for local anaesthesia since that enabled us to keep the patient awake while the surgery is performed. Although this type of surgical intervention requires a very high degree of skill and technical knowhow, it is much safer as far as patients are concerned," Siddiqui, who headed the team of doctors, said. He said while performing the surgery through this method, the doctors kept interacting with the patient, which helped them receive feedback in real time as to whether the operation was heading in the right direction.

If the patient became unconscious, it was difficult for the surgeon to get any feedback, he said. "For example, while operating upon this young man, we kept asking him as to whether he felt any weakness and numbness in his right arm and leg since the tumour affected that part of the brain, which controlled movement of these limbs. In the event of any adverse feedback, we would have stopped. Thankfully, it all went off fine," Siddiqui said. Set up in 2012, AIIMS, Patna is located on the outskirts of the city.