Monday, January 16 2006 09:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon underwent a successful tracheotomy yesterday (Jan 15,2006) night to help wean him off a respirator that has been helping him breathe since he suffered a massive stroke January 4, hospital officials said.

Sharon remained in critical but stable condition yesterday (Jan 14,2006) evening before the surgery, the hospital said in a statement. The surgery took less than an hour.

The hospital said that before the throat surgery, Sharon had a CT scan of his brain, which showed his condition was 'unchanged since the previous scan, carried out last Thursday.'

The hospital said Sharon 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.

In the tracheotomy, conducted under general anesthesia, doctors cut a small hole in his neck to insert a tube directly into his windpipe.

Sharon had to undergo the procedure because the plastic tube currently connecting the prime minister's windpipe with the respirator would have started to cause him damage if it remains in for much longer, said Dr. Philip Stieg, chair of neurosurgery at the Weill-Cornell Medical Colege in New York.

Sharon's comatose state and the fact that he was undergoing the tracheotomy do not bode well for the Prime Minister's future, Stieg said. It is becoming more probable as time pases that Sharon will either remain in a vegetative state or have low cognitive abilities, he added.