JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon underwent a successful tracheotomy Sunday to help wean him off a respirator that has been helping him breathe since he suffered a massive stroke 11 days ago, hospital officials said, but he remained in a coma. The surgery, conducted under general anesthesia, took less than an hour as doctors cut a small hole in Sharon's neck to insert a tube directly into his windpipe.The hospital said that before the throat surgery, Sharon had a brain scan, which showed his condition was "unchanged since the previous scan, carried out last Thursday."
Sharon also had been taken off the last of the sedatives that have kept him in a medically induced coma Saturday evening, but he was still unconscious, according to the statement.
Outside experts said the tracheotomy was necessary because the plastic tube that had connected his windpipe with the respirator would have started to cause damage.
Sharon's comatose state and the tracheotomy do not bode well for the prime minister's future, said Dr. Philip Stieg, chair of neurosurgery at the Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York. It is becoming more probable as time passes that Sharon will either remain in a vegetative state or have low abilities to think and reason, said Stieg, who is not involved in Sharon's care.
"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."
Doctors said Saturday that Sharon had activity on both sides of his brain.