By CLAIRE BATES

Last updated at 15:58 13 December 2007

Doctors have split a teenage girl's brain in two to stop the spread of a rare brain disease.

Janine Leach, 15, from Sunderland, has a disorder known as Rasmussen s Encephalitis, that eats away at her brain.

The youngster was diagnosed with the condition when she was 11. She could have up to 100 seizures a day as surges of electricity in her brain made her nervous system misfire.

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Janine's mum, Tracey Podd said: "Sometimes the fits were only a minute apart. I used to sit at the hospital and watch every seizure she had. It was awful."

Janine made the tough decision this year to have radical brain surgery after doctors told her the disease would continue to spread and leave her handicapped.

Doctors cut away the diseased half of her brain but left it inside her skull to prevent an increased risk of blood cots.

The surgery left Janine paralysed on the left hand side of her body but doctors hope with physiotherapy she will eventually walk.

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Janine has not had a seizure since the operation. The high school pupil said: "I have had a very big operation, it was scary, but I am happy I had it. I hated the seizures."

Her parents Tracey and Keith, a TNT delivery man, are hopeful that the worst is behind them.

"She is more cheery and much more Janine like," Tracey told the Sunderland Echo.

"We have seen a dramatic change in her since the operation."