Neurosurgery

About us
 

The Department of Neurosurgery at Children's Hospital Boston provides highly integrated care for children, adolescents and young adults with diseases and malformations of the brain, spine and nervous system. From 2009 through 2012, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Children’s as having the top pediatric neurosurgery program in the nation.

Nervous system disorders and injuries often have far-reaching effects on a child’s health. Here at Children's, we aim to understand and treat all elements of a child's condition.

We treat children with a wide range of conditions, including:

• brain and spinal cord tumors
• cavernous malformations
• cerebrovascular disorders (including aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations
•  and stroke)
• chiari malformations
• craniopharyngioma
• craniosynostosis
• epilepsy
• head injuries
• hydrocephalus
• Moyamoya disease
• plagiocephaly
• spina bifida
• spinal cord injuries
• tethered spinal cord syndrome
• vascular malformations and hemangiomas

Our department collaborates with other prominent Boston health care institutions, such as Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. For more information about our combined program, please call us at 617-355-6008.

Our expertise

• Children’s Hospital Boston was among the first hospitals in the world to focus on pediatric neurosurgery as an individual specialty.
   
• Our neurosurgery team includes surgeons, physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, imaging professionals, psychologists and social workers who work together to deliver integrated, personalized care for every child.
   
• Our reputation for achievement; strengths in a rich assortment of subspecialties; commitment to minimally invasive surgical techniques; and prime location in Boston’s “health care hub” attract the world’s most skilled and accomplished medical and surgical professionals.
   
• Children’s is one of the only pediatric hospitals in the world to dedicate full clinical programs to rare, life-threatening conditions like Moyamoya disease.
   
• Our doctors are involved in scientific research that offers new hope for children with brain, spine and nervous system disorders.
   
• Children’s has developed and refined some of the most influential advances in pediatric neurosurgery, including:
  • pial synangiosis, a surgical procedure that relocates healthy blood vessels in the brain to combat Moyamoya disease
  • endoscopic third ventriculostomy, an alternative to traditional shunt placement for some children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida
  • linear accelerator radiosurgery, a highly efficient form of radiotherapy that targets tumors in the brain while minimizing damage to surrounding, healthy tissue
  • introduction of a non-invasive device that measures subtle changes in children’s head size, enabling earlier diagnosis of craniosynostosis and plagiocephaly
     
• Children’s was the first pediatric hospital in the country to introduce Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in a neurosurgical operating room (OR). Our intraoperative MR allows doctors to view detailed, “real-time” images of the brain and spine while performing surgery.