Patient plays violin as brain tumour removed

As an accomplished classical violinist, Dagmar Turner has spent years playing to audiences in grand concert venues.
But her latest performance will go down as the most memorable – for it took place on an operating table while she had brain surgery.
Turner, 53, was suffering from a large aggressive tumour in her right frontal lobe, close to cells controlling the movement of her left hand. So surgeons came up with a novel solution to preserve her ability to play.
They cut open her skull under general anaesthetic, then waited for her to regain consciousness before handing over her violin and telling her: ‘Play, play.’ For the next three hours, she entertained them as they cut out her tumour in a technique called ‘cortical mapping’ – where they stimulate tissue with a tiny electric probe millimetre by millimetre.
If, when the current was applied, she suddenly stopped or went out of tune, they knew that part of the brain was crucial to playing the violin.
This meant Professor Keyoumars Ashkan and his team could avoid removing areas responsible for the delicate hand movement and co-ordination needed by musicians.
As she played music ranging from a Julio Iglesias tune to Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, surgeons successfully removed 90% of the 8cm by 4cm tumour – larger than a golf ball.
The mother went home to her husband and teenage son just three days after the operation at King’s College Hospital in London on January 31.
Turner, who plays in Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra and various choral societies, said: “Thanks to them I’m hoping to be back with my orchestra very soon. It means everything that I can still play the violin. This is my life.” She was diagnosed with a large benign glioma brain tumour in 2013 after suffering a seizure during a symphony.