Department of Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery, Spinal Surgery - University Hospital Rechts der Isar Munich

About the Department of Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery, Spinal Surgery at University Hospital Rechts der Isar Munich

The Department of Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery, Spinal Surgery at the University Hospital Rechts der Isar Munich offers the full range of services in these fields and specializes in the surgical treatment of diseases of the brain and spinal cord, peripheral nervous system and spine. The important areas of the department's clinical activity also include neuro-oncology, vascular neurosurgery and pediatric neurosurgery. The treatment is provided in four state-of-the-art operating rooms equipped with all the necessary facilities. The department admits about 2,700 inpatients and 4,100 outpatients annually. The team of the department's neurosurgeons is distinguished by high professionalism, and performs many operations using sparing minimally invasive surgical techniques. Navigation systems, intraoperative monitoring devices, 5-ALA fluorescence are successfully used during the surgical treatment. Each operation is carefully planned using advanced navigation devices (under the guidance of CT and MRI scanning). In general, the department's surgeons annually perform more than 4,000 neurosurgical interventions, and therefore they are justifiably proud of their unique clinical experience and treatment results. The department is headed by Prof. Dr. med. Bernhard Meyer.

The patients' health is in the safe hands of a highly qualified medical team consisting of 7 senior physicians, 3 specialized doctors and 17 assistant physicians. All the specialists of the medical facility strive to provide each patient with customized treatment, taking into account his needs and wishes. In addition, neurosurgeons make sure that the patient receives less traumatic, but at the same time, the most effective treatment.

Of particular interest to the department's doctors is neuro-oncology. The department is certified by the German Cancer Society as the Neuro-Oncology Center. The medical facility deals with the treatment of complex brain tumors, such as gliomas, metastatic brain lesions, skull base and pituitary tumors. For this purpose, the department uses the very latest neurosurgical techniques, which were partially developed by the research group of the medical facility. In addition, the methods of computer-assisted surgery are widely used, which allow doctors to accurately detect the location of tumors in the brain and spine, and to remove them as efficiently as possible.

The department's doctors quite often have to deal with the treatment of neurovascular pathologies: aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, dural arteriovenous fistulas, cavernomas and other pathologies. When performing operations for the above-mentioned diseases, the department's specialists use intraoperative neuromonitoring in order to exclude damage to vital anatomical structures. In most cases, endovascular surgical techniques are used during surgical interventions, but in especially complex clinical cases, hybrid interventions that combine classical open and endovascular surgery are performed.

In the field of spinal surgery, the department's services range from sparing minimally invasive interventions to operations for the preservation of spinal mobility, reconstructive interventions using the most modern technologies and implants. It is worth noting that the Department of Neurosurgery in cooperation with the Department of Traumatology and Orthopedics was certified by the German Society for Spine Surgery in 2016 as the Level I Spine Surgery Center.

The department also admits children and adolescents with pathologies of the central and peripheral nervous system: tumors of the brain and spinal cord, nervous system malformations, traumatic injuries of the brain and spine, hydrocephalus and seizures.

The main department's clinical focuses include the following options:

• Surgical treatment of benign and malignant tumors of the nervous system 
  • Removal of such brain tumors as glioma, meningioma, and brain metastases
  • Functionally guided microsurgery using intraoperative SEP/MEP monitoring
  • Preoperative mapping using navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation
  • Awake surgery
  • Neuronavigation with nerve fiber imaging in combination with PET with labeled amino acids
  • ALK-induced fluorescence-guided glioma removal (Gliolan®)
• Skull base surgery
  • Removal of meningiomas
  • Removal of clival chordomas
  • Removal of acoustic neuromas
  • Removal of pituitary tumors (pituitary adenomas, including those leading to the development of acromegaly and Cushing's disease, craniopharyngiomas, parasellar meningiomas)
• Spinal surgery
  • Dynamic lumbar spine stabilization
  • Minimally invasive implantation of dorsal ("posterior") stabilization systems
  • Fusion (360 degrees) for degenerative, traumatic, infectious and oncological diseases
  • Stabilizing interventions in the area between the skull and the cervical spine
  • Microsurgical removal of intraspinal tumors using functional monitoring
  • Minimally invasive, reconstructive surgery on the thoracic spine (thoracoscopy)
  • Minimally invasive surgery for the treatment of spinal disc herniation and stenosis of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine
  • Prosthetics of the intervertebral discs of the cervical spine
  • Kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty (minimally invasive treatment methods for vertebral fractures), for example, for osteoporosis or neoplastic lesions
• Surgical treatment of neurovascular diseases (for example, aneurysms, vascular malformations)
  • Combined endovascular and surgical interventions for complex malformations
• Surgical treatment of pathologies of the central and peripheral nervous system in children
  • Removal of brain and spinal cord tumors
  • Correction of developmental defects
  • Trauma surgery
  • Hydrocephalus surgery
  • Surgery for convulsive syndrome
• Surgical treatment of severe pain syndromes
  • Ablative techniques
  • Neuromodulation (altering or suppressing pain pathways in the brain or spinal cord)
  • Intrathecal injection of drugs (into the cerebrospinal fluid)
• Functional neurosurgery
  • Deep brain stimulation
• Other surgical options