Surgeons stop Sharon's cranial bleeding, says hospital

A security guard walks outside Hadassah Ein Karem hospital, where Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being treated. Picture / Reuters

JERUSALEM - Surgeons relieved pressure in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's brain in an emergency operation today and a scan showed no active bleeding, a doctor said.

"During the surgery the cranial pressure was released and some of the blood clots that remained from the previous surgery were drained," Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital, told reporters.

"At the end of the operation there is no active bleeding," Mor-Yosef said after the nearly five-hour operation, two days after Sharon suffered a massive stroke.

He said Sharon's brain scan showed "significant improvement" compared with previous scans, but added the 77-year-old leader, who is in a medically-induced coma and on a respirator, remained in critical condition.

Mor-Yosef did not say whether doctors still intended to awaken Sharon from sedation as early as tomorrow to assess his mental and physical abilities.

The death or incapacitation of Sharon, who raised peace hopes by pulling Israeli settlers and troops out of Gaza in September to end 38 years of military rule, would create a huge vacuum in Israeli politics and the Middle East peace process.

Yesterday, surgeons said they had stemmed bleeding in Sharon's brain in a seven-hour operation.

But a brain scan today showed heightened pressure and possible new bleeding, leading doctors to decide on a second operation.

- REUTERS