Digital public defence: Benjamin Lassen Lykkedrang

Cand.med. Benjamin Lassen Lykkedrang at Institute of Clinical Medicine will be defending the thesis "Complications after craniotomy for brain tumors" for the degree of PhD (Philosophiae Doctor).

The public defence will be held as a video conference over Zoom.

The digital defence will follow regular procedure as far as possible, hence it will be open to the public and the audience can ask ex auditorio questions when invited to do so.

Click here to participate in the public defence 

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Digital trial lecture - time and place

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Adjudication committee

  • First opponent: Professor Anil Nanda, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, USA 
  • Second opponent: Professor Dorothee Mielke, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany 
  • Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Morten Carstens Moe, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo 

Chair of defence

Professor II John-Anker Zwart, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo

Principal supervisor

Torstein R. Meling, Department of Neurosurgery, Oslo University Hospital

Summary

Brain tumors encompass a large number of both benign and malignant neoplasms. In many cases, the primary treatment option for brain tumors is surgery via craniotomy. With surgery, one can establish an exact diagnosis, provide symptom relief, improve survival, and in some cases, even cure the patient. However, surgery is not without inherent risks of complications, including e.g. surgical mortality, postoperative hematomas, infections of the surgical site, neurological deterioration and hydrocephalus, as well as medical complications secondary to hospitalization and surgery.

In order to weigh the possible benefits of surgery against the risk of complications, it is important to know how frequent and how severe complications are. This knowledge is also essential for efforts to reduce surgical risk. We therefore studied various complications after surgery for brain tumors at Oslo University Hospital, and attempted to identify risk factors for those complications. 

Our complication rates are low and compare favorably to other published rates, and may serve as a baseline for future research. In the adult population, the rate of surgical mortality was 2.3%, postoperative hematoma 2.1%, surgical site infections 1.5% and new-onset hydrocephalus 1.0%. New-onset hydrocephalus was more common in the pediatric population, occurring in 3.5% of patients, but the other complications were very rare in children. 

Additional information

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Published Aug. 14, 2020 2:45 PM - Last modified Aug. 27, 2020 2:32 PM