Sharon faces tracheotomy surgery

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will undergo a tracheotomy on tonight to help wean him off a respirator that has been helping him breathe since he suffered a massive stroke on January 4, hospital officials said.

Sharon remained in critical but stable condition this evening ahead of the surgery, the hospital said in a statement. He was also to undergo a brain scan.

In the tracheotomy, doctors will put Sharon under general anesthesia and cut a small hole in his neck to insert a tube directly into his windpipe.

Sharon has to undergo the procedure because the plastic tube currently connecting the prime minister’s windpipe with the respirator will start to cause him damage if it remains in for much longer, said Dr Philip Stieg, chairman of neurosurgery at the Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York.

Sharon’s comatose state and the fact that he is undergoing the tracheotomy do not bode well for the prime minister’s future, Stieg said. It is becoming more probable as time passes that Sharon will either remain in a vegetative state or have low cognitive abilities, he added.

“It suggests that the brain damage is as serious as we thought it was based on earlier reports and now its all playing out,” Stieg said. “He’s not turning the corner, he’s not waking up … they’re having to do more things to keep him alive.”

Dr. Maurizio Miglietta, chief of trauma and critical care at the New York University’s School of Medicine, said a tracheotomy is a fairly simple, risk-free procedure that could take just 10 minutes.

The risks of infection or a negative reaction to the general anesthetics are fairly low, he said.

Once the tracheotomy is performed, Miglietta said it may be easir for doctors to wean Sharon off the sedatives because he will no longer have the uncomfortable breathing tube in his windpipe.

Doctors said Saturday that Sharon, who has been unconscious since suffering his devastating stroke, had activity on both sides of his brain.

Last week, doctors began weaning Sharon from the sedatives that had kept him in an induced coma to give his brain time to heal from the stroke and the three surgeries that followed.

By Saturday, he was only receiving light sedation, but remained unconscious.