[scotty79]

> It really isn't - see my other comment.

> [...] exactly the sort of place that has all the latest new toys. This is often very far from typical practice. So people outside of healthcare hear about all sort of things that are a decade or more from general usage, even if they get there eventually.

To give a bit more context to my anecdata.

The surgery I was talking about was performed 10 years ago. In Poland. In city with around 700k people. In probably the best hospital for such surgeries in this city with only one other hospital also doing neurosurgery in this city but specializing more in the spinal surgery. The neurosurgical ward back then was in dire need of renovations so not exactly shiny new place that has funds for the best toys.

As I said it looked pretty routine back then.

She did not have fMRI for her following surgeries because tumors were not close to the speech center (opposite hemisphere, then frontal lobes).

[ska]

> 10 years ago. In Poland.

Interesting; I've much more exposure to US. Overall, I'd say there are sites that do it pretty routinely, but far more sites that basically never do it. And others that don't even have the equipment/licenses if they wanted to. For what it's worth, overall neurosurgeons do much more spine surgery than brain. In the particular case you mention, I've seen a lot of mapping and/or testing for surgeries near eloquent function, but little fMRI. Outside of that, basically unheard of.