Xenon anesthesia for awake craniotomy: safety and efficacy.

Background: The asleep-awake-asleep (AAA) craniotomy is a technique that offers the opportunity of having a patient fully cooperative during the awake phase, and minimizes the possible discomfort, due to the asleep phase. The aim of this prospective observational study was to test the use of xenon in the first asleep phase of an AAA craniotomy, in patients undergoing craniotomy for brain tumor resection.

Methods: The data have been collected from 40 awake craniotomy procedures, performed in patients with cerebral tumor, treated with the AAA technique.