Prof. Mahmut Gazi Yasargil - The Legend Live Beyond Life

Dear Friends As we all in grief and sadness after the demise of our beloved mentor Prof Gazi Yasargil at the age of 99 on June 11, 2025, waves of memories keep coming in everyone of us practicing neurosurgery. The legendary neurosurgeon who transformed neurosurgery as a whole with his microsurgery is no more, but his legacy will stay as long as neurosurgery exist. Prof Gazi Yasargil has visited India few times and I had the opportunity to see him and listen to his lecture in 1987 NSI meet in Hyderabad and recollect this “Micro neurosurgeon is like a taxi driver who drives in Indian busy streets without touching and hitting any one and still reach the destination, you need that skill.” As a young neurosurgery postgraduate, I still managed to get a space in a group photo that is still in my office room. Microscope was introduced in Zurich by Prof. Yasargil in 1967 in neurosurgery not only in brain but also in spine surgery and hence the birth of “Microdiscectomy” in lumbar spine. However, he published his results of 105 patients in 1977 (Yasargil MG: Microsurgical operation of herniated lumbar disc. Adv Neurosurg 1977;4:81). When I met him last in 2017 during WFNS conference at Istanbul, I could interact with him and asked his views on current days young endoscopic surgeons often using the word “over the top” decompression to reach the opposite nerve root in lumbar spine, he smiled and said it was long ago described in microsurgical hemilaminectomy for spinal cord tumors, the technique I still follow for decompressing opposite nerve root from unilateral approach using microscope. It is worth reading his chapter - Unilateral partial hemilaminectomy for the removal of extra-intra medullary tumors and AVMs published in 1991. Springer Science-Business media (10.1007/978-3-7091-6697-0_3), ISSN 1869-9189. As we are inseparable from his philosophy and teaching and as we proceed further to achieve more in spinal surgery, we pay a great tribute to him and continue to perfect spinal surgery through microsurgery. Rest in peace dear Prof Gazi Yasargil