Doctors attending Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister who remains in a drug-induced coma after a massive brain haemorrhage, have carried out another brain scan.

A spokesman for the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem said that the latest scan, on Saturday, had been planned in advance and did not indicate any worsening of his situation.

Medical sources said the scan took 25 minutes, after which Sharon, 77, was returned to the intensive care unit as the results were assessed.

Sharon was declared "critical but stable" on Friday night after three hours of surgery to stem haemorrhaging in his brain, his third operation since being admitted to hospital on Wednesday night.

Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the hospital director, said some blood clots remaining from two previous rounds of surgery had been drained, but Sharon remained in a medically induced coma to let his body rest.

Felix Umansky, the chief surgeon, said: "There is always damage in cases like these. We have to wait to see how he will react when we lessen the dosage of the medications that are keeping him sedated."

But he told AFP that Sharon could still recover. "He can still pull through," he said. "He is doing better. We need to wait two or three days. We are going to do another scan and if there are no other problems we will start to bring him out of the coma."

Elder statesman

However, doctors have said privately that Sharon may have suffered irreversible brain damage, leaving the future of Israeli politics hanging in the balance. His closest allies have acknowledged that he is unlikely ever to return to office.

In the event of Sharon dying or being permanently incapacitated, Ehud Olmert, Sharon’s deputy and finance minister who has taken over temporarily as prime minister, will have to be approved as acting prime minister by a cabinet vote.

Olmert held talks with Shimon Peres, the former prime minister and a Sharon ally, on Friday. It was speculated that he would ask Peres to rejoin the government as an elder statesman in the absence of Sharon.

PHOTO CAPTION

George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon, left at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in this April 11, 2005 file photo. (AP)