06-21-2023 Primetime Living - Flipbook - Page 6
6 A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Wednesday, June 21, 2023
NEURO HEALTH
A tradition of
advancing innovation
in neurology
and neurosurgery
University of Maryland
Medical Center
By Gregory J. Alexander, Contributing Writer
F
or over 100 years, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) has Epilepsy
spearheaded groundbreaking innovation in the fields of neurology and
neurosurgery, impacting the lives of thousands of Marylanders.
“The University of Maryland Medical
System cares for a broad spectrum and
large number of patients with neurological disorders and acute injuries,” says
Graeme F. Woodworth, M.D., FACS,
Professor of Neurosurgery, University of
Maryland School of Medicine, and Chair
of Neurosurgery, University of Maryland
Medical Center. “We created the University
of Maryland Neuroscience Network, which
has been an important innovation as it
allows our system to serve the needs of
the state without every hospital having to
purchase expensive equipment and hire
neurosurgeons. Instead, we can leverage
technology and collaboration and strategically deploy resources within the network
of hospitals.”
When discussing where UMMC, which
is celebrating its 200th anniversary this
year, has recently seen breakthrough
advancements, Dr. Woodworth, along with
his colleague, Peter Crino, M.D., Ph.D.,
Professor of Neurology, University of
Maryland School of Medicine, and Chair of
Neurology, University of Maryland Medical
Center, point to four areas:
Stroke
“Cerebral vascular disease, or stroke, is
one of the biggest public health challenges
in the U.S. and around the world,” Dr. Crino
says. “Stroke is one of the leading causes
of death across the world. It’s a very common neurological problem that has huge
disability associated with it, working hours
loss, and public health costs, not only for
the patient, but also for the workforce and
for caregivers.”
Dr. Crino adds that in the past decade,
physicians have been able to pivot to a very
proactive and time-based, aggressive therapy approach. “We have the ability to use
thrombolytic drugs to dissolve the existing
clot that is affecting the blood vessels causing the stroke in the brain. An important
interface between neurology, neurosurgery
and interventional neuroradiology is the
ability to do a large vessel occlusion extraction by imaging a person who has a large
clot, and then, using a catheter, remove
the clot to greatly diminish or prevent any
neurological injury.”
Dr. Crino notes that in 2021-22, the
University of Maryland Medical System
cared for over 3,000 stroke patients.
Drs. Woodworth and Crino agree that
epilepsy is another common public health
challenge as 1% of the world’s population
has been diagnosed with epilepsy.
“At UMMC, there is tremendous synergy
between neurologists and neurosurgeons
who are epilepsy specialists,” says Dr.
Crino. “For about one-third of epilepsy
patients, there is no combination of medications that will work for them, so one option
is to identify the spot in the brain where the
seizures are coming from and remove that
part of the brain. There is also a new technology that utilizes a minimally invasive,
image-guided laser to ablate the part of the
brain that is responsible for the seizures.
In addition, neuromodulation is an exciting
new approach where we map where the
seizures are coming from and implant an
electrode in that part of the brain, which
is attached to a mini-computer that uses
an artificial intelligence algorithm to learn
what the patient’s seizure onset looks like
and deliver an electrical stimulus to abort
the seizure.”
Parkinson’s Disease
UMMC has been a leader on the treatment of Parkinson’s disease for decades. In
the 1950s, University of Maryland neurosurgeon Dr. William H. Mosberg, Jr., began the
development of focused ultrasound ablation of the brain for movement disorders like
Parkinson’s and essential tremor.
Dr. Woodworth notes that two challenges that Dr. Mosberg and others encountered were the inability to get the ultrasound
through the intact skull without removing
part of the bone and monitoring the effects
in real time. Due to this, neurosurgeons
shifted to use photon-based radiation to
develop stereotactic radiosurgery (e.g.
gamma knife) that uses radiation and computer-guided planning with high resolution
imaging to treat abnormalities in the brain.
“With advanced new tools at UMMC,
we’ve been able to surmount those barriers
from the 1950s with focused ultrasound.
Now, MRI-guided focused ultrasound can
be used in the treatment of essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease, and UMMC
has been involved in the advancement
of this technology for over 70 years,” Dr.
Woodworth says.
Brain Cancer
Dr. Crino says that the advent of specifically trained neurologists and oncologists
specializing in brain cancers, there has
been a huge impact for patients with these
often life-altering tumors.
“Technology now allows us to create
a personalized map of the patient’s key
functional networks within the brain and
use that to guide surgical decision-making
to remove the tumors in the brain while
also developing therapies for the residual
invasive disease. It’s a gamechanger,” says
Dr. Woodworth.