STATE TRIES AGAIN TO REVOKE DOCTOR'S LICENSE.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - State authorities are attempting for a second time to revoke or suspend the license of a Lancaster neurosurgeon whose operation on a young woman left her paralyzed on one side and unable to speak.

Dr. George Perdikis, whose staff privileges were revoked or terminated by Antelope Valley Hospital last June, is charged by the Medical Board of California with gross negligence and incompetence in the May 13, 1998, surgery.

The accusation was filed in January on behalf of the state Medical Board by the state Attorney General's Office. No hearing date has been set.

A call to Perdikis' office in Lancaster seeking comment was not returned Friday.

The medical board previously charged Perdikis in August 1996 with gross negligence in the deaths of two patients and performing unnecessary surgery on two other patients at a Redding Hospital in 1992.

The board's complaint, however, was withdrawn in December 1997 for reasons that were not made part of the public record, medical board officials said.

Four months before the surgery on May 13, 1998, Perdikis had seen the young woman, then 19, when she came to Antelope Valley Hospital's emergency room on Jan. 24, 1998, complaining of severe headaches, double vision and blurred vision, among other things, the accusation said.

About two days before the emergency room visit, the patient had seen an opthalmologist, who ordered a CT scan of her brain. Because the scan revealed an ``intracranial mass lesion,'' the opthalmologist ordered the patient admitted at the emergency room and referred her to Perdikis, the accusation said.

In the emergency room, Perdikis diagnosed the patient with having a ``large central extra axial tumor displacing the brain. ...'' Perdikis put the patient on a medicine called Decadron and discharged her about two days later, the accusation said.

``Respondent planned to 'carry out a left frontotemporal craniotomy for biopsy/resection of the tumor in the future.' Respondent failed to set a date for the surgery,'' the accusation said.

On May 13, 1998, Perdikis performed a ``left frontotemporal craniotomy for tumor biopsy and partial 'debulking,''' the accusation said. ``Respondent failed to expose the tumor, failed to obtain a biopsy and failed to 'debulk' any part of the tumor during the surgical procedure. After the surgery, the patient was noted to have a complete left third nerve palsy, aphasia and right hemiplegia.''

Aphasia is a total or partial loss of the power to use or understand words, usually caused by brain disease or injury. Hemiplegia is paralysis on one side of the body.

About six days later, Perdikis in his post-operative note ``falsely stated that he obtained a significant biopsy and achieved partial 'debulking' of the tumor,'' the accusation said.

In Perdikis' note ordering the transfer of the patient to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles for rehabilitation, he ``failed to inform the physicians at CHLA that the patient's tumor had not been biopsied or 'debulked,' and further, failed to inform (them) that the patient would need neurosurgery consultation,'' the accusation said.

A Childrens Hospital physician in the rehabilitation department reviewing post-operative CT films noted the patient's tumor had not been removed. On May 28, 1998, Childrens Hospital neurosurgeons removed the tumor. ``There was no change in the patient's neurological deficits following the second operation,'' the accusation said.

The accusation charges that Perdikis delayed surgery for four months; inappropriately chose a ```a left-sided approach' to a midline extra dural skull-based tumor in a patient, thereby causing the patient to suffer post-surgical aphasia and hemiplegia'' and failed to expose, approach, remove or ``debulk'' the patient's tumor during the May 13 surgery.

Perdikis was hired by Antelope Valley Hospital in April 1996. Two years later, Perdikis filed a libel and slander lawsuit complaining that two other neurosurgeons called him incompetent.

Perdikis' claimed he was libeled in an e-mail message by Dr. Harvey Birsner, a former Antelope Valley Hospital director.

In the e-mail, Birsner said Perdikis ``got lost'' during surgery and was unable to find a brain tumor, according to the lawsuit, which was dismissed in 1999, court records show.

Perdikis was issued a medical license in February 1987, and its expiration date is November 2002, medical board records show.

Perdikis graduated from the University of California at Irvine College of Medicine in 1985, medical board records show.