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Doctor eager to do brain surgery to rid drug addiction
(eastday)
Updated: 2005-06-24 08:54

Dr Wang Guisong is eagerly awaiting the chance to perform brain surgery on drug addicts - a practice the Ministry of Health banned last October, but is expected to allow in the future under tight guidelines.

A man walks in front of a light box with Chinese writing that reads 'Severe Damage of Drug' at an anti-drugs exhibition in Shanghai in 2003. [AFP]

Wang, who works in the neurosurgery department at Renji Hospital, is one of the leading experts on the surgery in Shanghai.

"Using medicine alone can solve physical addiction, but it is unable to solve the mental addiction," he said. "Brain surgery is really the last resort for drug addicts and their families. Many broke and distraught parents have come to me for help for their addicted children."

Wang said the brain surgery is not a new technique, but it has only been used in a few countries to treat drug addiction. The method has been used around the world on people with Parkinson's disease, brain tumors and epilepsy.

Several European countries started to perform the surgery on drug addicts in the late 1970s and it became popular in Russia in the 1990s. The surgery was first performed on humans in China in 2000, after testing on animals.

Hospitals in Shaanxi and Guangdong provinces were the first to use the technique.

"We started to do the surgery last year and performed 28 operations. Twenty-three patients kicked drug completely," Wang said. "The rest didn't break their addictions, since they went back to their drug friends."

Wang said narcotics affect certain brain tissues, creating a feeling of euphoria, which can lead to addiction. Destroying a small area of specific brain tissues can break the addiction.

"It is a minimally invasive surgery. Doctors open two small holes in the skull and use two electrodes to destroy the relative tissues," he said. "The most difficult step is to locate the tissues, which is slightly different in different people. It is found through magnetic resonance imaging before the surgery."

While Wang wants to start performing the surgery again, he says he supported the ministry's decision to ban the procedure while setting regulations on how it can be performed.

"Some hospitals performed the surgery incorrectly or didn't have enough qualified doctors," Wang said.

He said the ministry is expected to discuss the surgery with doctors in October, and then announce regulations on how it can be performed.

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