Incredible video shows South African musician Musa Manzini play guitar during brain tumour surgery

A video taken during the six-hour surgery for a brain tumour, shows him lying on his back plucking the strings of his guitar

Doctors opted to keep Manzini awake in order to assess which areas of his brain were functioning as the surgery went on

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South African jazz artist Musa Manzini has played his music all over the world, but one performance stands out – strumming his guitar while surgeons operated on his brain. Photo: Facebook

Published: 10:12am, 23 Dec 2018Updated: 9:13pm, 23 Dec 2018

His skull still open, a South African musician with a brain tumour played several notes on his guitar during a successful operation to remove most of the growth.

Musa Manzini’s guitar-playing helped guide the medical team in their delicate task while preserving neural pathways, said Dr Rohen Harrichandparsad, one of the neurosurgeons.

Manzini was given local anaesthetic during what doctors call an “awake craniotomy” this month at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban.

“It increased the margin of safety for us, in that we could have real-time feedback on what we were doing intraoperatively,” Harrichandparsad said Saturday.

His skull still open, a South African musician with a brain tumour played several notes on his guitar during a successful operation to remove most of the growth. Photo: AP

The procedure is not uncommon, and there have been several cases in other countries of musicians playing an instrument or singing during similar operations.