Welcome to the Pacific Neuroscience Institute Blog

It is a great pleasure to welcome our referring doctors, and our past, present and future patients to the Pacific Neuroscience Institute Blog.

We’re thrilled to announce that internationally recognized expert Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD has joined us as the new Director of Neuro-Oncology. He will be heading our Department of Translational Neuro-oncology and Neurotherapeutics.

Dr. Kesari’s expertise is in the personalized treatment of all types of brain cancers including gliomas and metastatic brain tumors, using leading-edge immunotherapies and biomarker-based treatments. He has a number of Clinical trials that will provide many novel treatment options for our patients with all types of brain tumors. His team of neuroscientists will be based at the Saint John’s Cancer Institute. We expect his translational neuro-oncology lab to be fully operational by December 2015. Before joining us in Santa Monica, Dr. Kesari was professor of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and director of neuro-oncology at Moores UC San Diego Cancer Center for 5 years.

Learn more about Dr. Kesari, his clinical trials and research efforts.

At the Pacific Brain Tumor Center, we have had several important publications over the last year on topics ranging from pituitary gland sparing surgery, preservation of sense of smell in endoscopic skull base surgery and the use of endoscopic keyhole techniques for brain tumor removal. Six such articles are highlighted below:

1. Endoscopic and gravity-assisted resection of medial temporo-occipital Lesions through a supracerebellar transtentorial approach: technical notes with case illustrations. Villanueva P, Louis RG, Cutler AR, Wei H, Sale D, Duong HT, Barkhoudarian G, Kelly DF. Neurosurgery. 2015 Aug 14. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 26280113 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26280113
2. Endoscopic endonasal management of parasellar and cavernous sinus meningiomas. Lobo B, Zhang X, Barkhoudarian G, Griffiths CF, Kelly DF. Neurosurg Clin N Am. 2015 Jul;26(3):389-401. PMID: 26141358 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26141358
3. Impact of selective pituitary gland incision or resection on hormonal function after adenoma or cyst resection. Barkhoudarian G, Cutler AR, Yost S, Lobo B, Eisenberg A, Kelly DF Pituitary. 2015 Jun 27. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 26115709. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26115709
4. The expanding role of the endoscopic endonasal approach in pituitary and skull base surgery: A 2014 perspective. Lobo B, Heng A, Barkhoudarian G, Griffiths CF, Kelly DF. Surg Neurol Int. 2015 May 20;6:82. PMID: 26015870 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26015870
5. Evolution of minimally invasive approaches to the sella and parasellar region. Louis RG, Eisenberg A, Barkhoudarian G, Griffiths C, Kelly DF. Int Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2014 Oct;18(Suppl 2):S136-48. PMID: 25992138 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25992138
6. Avoidance of postoperative epistaxis and anosmia in endoscopic endonasal skull base surgery: a technical note. Griffiths CF, Cutler AR, Duong HT, Bardo G, Karimi K, Barkhoudarian G, Carrau R, Kelly DF. Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2014 Jul;156(7):1393-401. Epub 2014 May 9. PMID: 24809531. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24809531

For our patients, we have two new animated educational videos that are available in our video library and on Youtube. We produced these brief videos to describe the techniques of endoscopic endonasal pituitary surgery and keyhole brain tumor surgery. These accurately rendered animations help explain the state-of-the-art minimally invasive techniques that we routinely use to remove brain, skull base and pituitary tumors and which significantly enhance patient recovery after surgery.

We hope you find our new blog to be informative and insightful.