Julie Lomb had to remove her glasses to show her scar from brain surgery -- a thin line visible across her closed right eyelid and just past the corner of her eye.

Only weeks before, surgeons at Allegheny General Hospital entered through the eyelid, then removed a small piece of her skull to repair an aneurysm, a weak spot in a vessel in her brain.

Doctors used small metal clips to cut off the aneurysm's blood supply. An aneurysm that bursts can cause stroke, permanent nerve damage or death.

"I'm so relieved it's fixed," said Ms. Lomb, 31, of Brighton Heights. Back to working part-time at the Curves in Bellevue, she said she no longer suffers from the migraine headaches that plagued her for years.

Dr. Khaled Aziz, director of Allegheny General's Center for Complex Intracranial Surgery, said a minicraniotomy using the eyelid approach can benefit certain patients with aneurysms, cysts or tumors in the frontal area of the brain. He said he has performed 10 of the surgeries at Allegheny General, all with good results.

Besides its cosmetic benefits, patients may experience faster recovery compared to conventional surgeries that require larger incisions, he said.

Dr. Robert Harbaugh, chairman of neurosurgery at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, said that most incisions for aneurysm repairs in the frontal or temporal areas are made just past the hairline.

Though he had no personal experience with the eyelid approach, he questioned whether its benefits would be much better, noting that most patients recover quickly from similar repairs of unruptured aneurysms.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with doing surgery this way," he said of the eyelid approach, "but I would hardly look at it as some dramatic advance."

He also noted that many repairs can be made by filling aneurysms with metal coils or balloons inserted through a catheter threaded into an artery, a procedure known as endovascular embolization.

While the recovery from eyelid brain surgery isn't necessarily different from more traditional approaches, many patients become more concerned over the deformities in their forehead -- which can sometimes be not only unsightly but painful -- than they are over why they needed surgery in the first place, Dr. Aziz said.

"The eyelid approach eliminates all of this," he said, "while at the same time allowing a cure of their potentially life-threatening problem."

Ms. Lomb decided to have the surgery after an unsuccessful attempt to treat her aneurysm through an endovascular procedure.

Dr. Aziz said he learned of the eyelid approach from Dr. Mario Zuccarello, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Zuccarello said he and his colleagues have completed 15 cases, all with successful results. His team reported on five of those cases at a professional meeting in May.

He said that in selected patients, the eyelid approach can mean less retraction of brain tissue, a shorter incision and faster healing.

The main criticism, he said, is that scar tissue could form in the eye that could be cosmetically unacceptable. But he said he hasn't had that problem, noting that he works in collaboration with plastic surgeons who make the skin incisions.

For Ms. Lomb's surgery, the initial approach was made by Dr. Erik Happ, a specialist in eyelid and orbital surgery.

Then Dr. Aziz took over, exposing the brain and eventually the aneurysm, which was secured with two clips.

Ms. Lomb said she learned she had the aneurysm two years ago, after her headaches worsened and a scan indicated the problem.

After the endovascular procedure was not successful, a hospital worker told her about Dr. Aziz, and he raised the issue of an eyelid minicraniotomy, she said.

With two daughters, ages 8 and 10, she was especially attracted to the idea of a prompt recovery.

She had the surgery Dec. 11 and said she slept for much of the rest of the month. But she was back to work Jan. 7.

She has had some thumping and itching around the surgery site.

And some mornings, she has to use ice to reduce minor swelling and help the eye open completely.

Still, she is pleased with the results and noted that her scars from previous surgeries have faded.

Referring to her eyelid scar, she added, "I'm hoping this one does the same."