Neuroplastic surgery

Neuroplastic surgery

Specialty	neurology

Neuroplastic or neuroplastic and reconstructive surgery is the surgical specialty involved in reconstruction or restoration of patients who undergo surgery of the central or peripheral nervous system. The field includes a wide variety of surgical procedures that seek to restore or replace a patient’s skull, scalp, dura (the protective covering of the brain and spinal cord), the spine and/or its overlying tissues.

History of the field

Neuroplastic surgery has adapted reconstructive principles from the fields of craniofacial surgery, and plastic and reconstructive surgery and refined them in order to address challenging deformities which result from Neurosurgical Procedures. The first center for Neuroplastic and Reconstructive Surgery was started at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland by a formal collaboration between the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, under the guidance of plastic surgeon Chad Gordon, and the Department of Neurosurgery under the guidance of neurosurgeon Judy Huang. Upon arrival to Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Chad Gordon formed a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, scientists and engineers. The team’s unified goal was to develop techniques and devices to treat neurosurgical patients. These advances led to several publications and patents, and allowed for the establishment of the first formal fellowship training program in Neuroplastic and Reconstructive Surgery. In March 2018, Dr. Gordon was appointed the Director of Neuroplastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Johns Hopkins.

The first peer reviewed journal to recognize neuroplastic and reconstructive surgery as its own field was the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery which dedicated its January 2018 issue to introducing the new field of neuroplastic surgery to its readership. In that issue, the editor-in-chief, Mutaz Habal, published an editorial on neuroplastic surgery where he stated: "Based on the desire to present the fact that neuroplastic surgery is there, we have a dedicated this issue of the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery. This presentation mostly involves surgical procedures that will be termed ‘‘neuroplastic’’ in the years to come."

Training

Training in neuroplastic surgery requires completion of a neuroplastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship which lasts 1–2 years. Such fellowships are available to individuals who have completed a residency in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, ENT Surgery, Neurosurgery or Oral and Maxillofacial surgery. As of today, the only formal fellowship training program in neuroplastic and reconstructive surgery is located at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Hospital. The fellowship is co-sponsored by both Departments of Plastic Surgery and Neurosurgery. The first surgeon formally trained in "Neuroplastic and Reconstructive Surgery" was Dr. Gabriel Santiago [2016-18], who completed ENT surgery residency in the US Navy prior to starting the fellowship. ^{(August 2018)}

The first Neuroplastic Surgery Research Fellow was Dr. Amir Wolff [2017-18], an attending oral-maxillofacial surgeon from Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel.

^{(August 2018)}

Neuroplastic surgery procedures

• Cranioplasty (or skull reconstruction)
• Temporal Hollowing Repair
• Removal of Neurofibroma Tumors in Neurofibromatosis
• Complex Scalp Reconstruction
• Craniofacial Approaches to brain tumors
• Removal of skull and craniofacial tumors
• Complex Approaches to the spine and spinal cord
• Complex closures of the back following spine surgery
• Ventricular Shunt Revision
• Repair of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) leaks
• Dural Reconstruction
• Implantation of Functional Neural Devices

References

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