Mercy Health — The Neuroscience Institute
Letter from the Director
Zubair Ahammad, DO
Department Chair
People seek out neurosurgeons every year for a variety of complaints such as back pain, hand numbness, brain tumors or emergencies like brain bleeds. Neurosurgery represents a vast specialty dealing with surgical treatments for conditions affecting the nervous system, ranging from life-threatening to those affecting quality of life. These conditions often require a skilled, multidisciplinary approach oriented towards proper diagnosis and treatment, escalating from nonsurgical to surgical measures when appropriate. Our neurosurgery department coordinates with a multitude of specialists including physiatry, pain management, oncology, neurology, radiation oncology and therapists, amongst many others, to ensure comprehensive, patient-centered care. A recent renovation and expansion at Mercy Health - St. Vincent Medical Center focused on creating a more seamless patient experience by collocating the inpatient Neurology unit, Neuro Intensive Care Unit and dedicated Epilepsy Monitoring Unit on one floor and added collaborative spaces for our multidisciplinary team of experts.
Our robust neurosurgical team consists of four experienced neurosurgeons with individual niche areas, and an extensive network of physician extenders spanning the inpatient, outpatient and surgical realms. Our flagship hospital, Mercy Health – St. Vincent Medical Center, is a Level 1 Trauma Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center, and Level 2 Pediatric Trauma Center. In addition to caring for severe neurotrauma patients, we care for complicated vascular conditions of the brain and spinal cord in coordination with our interventional neurology colleagues and our neuro critical care specialists.
We offer cutting-edge technology incorporated into our diagnostic processes and surgical interventions to allow for improved outcomes and smoother recovery while maintaining compassionate care. At our disposal are a multitude of tools including gamma knife radiosurgery, Medtronic Stealth stereotactic navigation for brain and spinal surgery, and robotic spinal surgery. For optimized treatment of brain tumors, we have advanced MRI techniques including Omniscient cloud-based tractography and functional MRI capabilities, awake brain surgery, intraoperative fluoroscopy along with endoscopic brain surgery when appropriate.
Amidst a daunting diagnosis, our neurosurgery department is dedicated to ensuring efficient, coordinated care to prolong and enrich the quality of life. We are committed to using our prowess of expertise and technology to strive for optimal results and patient satisfaction.
Office locations
Mercy Health — The Neuroscience Institute, St. Vincent
2222 Cherry St., MOB2, Suite M200
Toledo, OH 43608
Mercy Health — The Neuroscience Institute, St. Luke's
5757 Monclova Rd., Suite 15
Maumee, Ohio 43537
Mercy Health — The Neuroscience Institute, Perrysburg
12623 Eckel Junction Rd., Suite 2600
Perrysburg, OH 43551
Mercy Health — The Neuroscience Institute, Oregon
2600 Navarre Avenue., Surgical Specialist Suite
Oregon, OH 43616
Mercy Health — The Neuroscience Institute, Defiance
1400 E. Second St.
Defiance, OH 43512
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Treatment and Technology:
A comprehensive specialty involving the brain, spine and nervous system, offering expert treatment and support for the full range of neurological conditions including, but not limited to:
Spine:
Cervical degenerative disease
Cervical radiculopathy
Cervical stenosis and myelopathy
Compression fractures
Kyphoplasty
Lumbar degenerative disease
Lumbar radiculopathy
Lumbar stenosis and neurogenic claudication
Spinal deformities and injuries
Spinal osteomyelitis and discitis
Spinal trauma
Spinal tumors
Brain:
AVMs
Awake craniotomy
Brain aneurysms
Brain infections
Brain tumors
Cavernomas
Chiari malformation
Gliomas
Hydrocephalus
Meningiomas
Metastatic disease
Pituitary tumors
Traumatic brain injury
Trigeminal neuralgia
Vascular neurosurgery
Innovative procedures:
Endoscopic neurosurgery
Gamma Knife radiosurgery
Minimally invasive craniotomy
Motion preservation spine surgery
Motion restoration spine surgery
Robotic-assisted minimally invasive spine surgery
Other services available:
Carpal tunnel and peripheral nerve surgery
Neurotrauma
Pediatric neurosurgery
Second opinion clinic
Technology
The Center also offers the following treatments and technologies:
Intraoperative fluorescence imaging for tumor
Intraoperative fluorescence imaging helps neurosurgeons remove malignant brain tumors that have poorly defined borders. High-grade gliomas may have a central mass, but they often extend tentacles of tumor cells into adjacent brain tissue. Surgeons can identify these cells more easily when they are illuminated and made to fluoresce with special medications.
Intraoperative ultrasound and electrophysiology
Surgeons use various types of intraoperative electrophysiology during surgery to make sure they do not cause harm during tumor removal. This important technology is critical when surgeons operate near “functional” tracts – areas involved with movement, balance and coordination. Evoked potential monitoring is used during surgery for acoustic neuromas to ensure that the facial nerve is not harmed.
When surgeons remove a tumor, the brain adjusts to the vacancy by shifting. Intraoperative ultrasound is a type of real-time image guidance that helps surgeons understand how the brain is adjusting during tumor removal. Intraoperative ultrasound also enables surgeons to ensure that blood flow to the brain continues unimpaired during the procedure.
Awake craniotomy
A craniotomy is a procedure in which neurosurgeons remove part of the skull. In some delicate procedures, this is done while the patient is awake so that the surgeon can use brain-mapping techniques to avoid critical functional areas, such as speech or arm movement. The patient performs tasks, such as reading, while the exposed brain is stimulated. The patient feels no pain.
Endoscopic brain surgery
Endoscopic surgery is minimally invasive surgery in which surgeons make small, keyhole incisions in the skull, eyelid or nose, and use long slender instrumentation (endoscopes) to remove tumors located deep within the brain. Endoscopic surgery is often performed during skull base surgery, with tumors being removed through the nose.
The robotic guidance platform combines preoperative planning tools and analytics with intraoperative guidance, giving Mercy Health surgeons advanced spinal surgery options. Our surgical robotic guidance technology allows our surgeons to visualize your patient's anatomy and pre-plan their surgery in 3D, and then use robotic guidance to execute their procedure. Robotic guided surgery has many benefits for the patients including smaller incisions, less risk for surgical complications and reduced postoperative pain.
Gamma Knife is non-invasive stereotactic radiosurgery that involves no scalpel or incision – it is not a knife at all. Instead, Gamma Knife uses up to 192 precisely focused beams of radiation to treat lesions in virtually any location in the brain with ultra-high precision and minimal effect on healthy tissue. This treatment requires minimal recovery time – when receiving treatment, patients are typically in and out in a single day. Mercy Health – Perrysburg Cancer Center is the first and only center in the greater Toledo area to offer brain tumor patients the benefits of Gamma Knife.
Omnicent cloud -based brain mapping technology
Mercy Health – The Neuroscience Institute is the first in Ohio to offer Omniscient Neurotechnology’s Quicktome. This is an FDA-cleared precision brain mapping platform designed to visualize a patient’s unique brain networks prior to surgery. The neurosurgeons can create network templates of an individual’s cognitive and emotional regulation networks within the brain, allowing them to tailor surgical approaches to a patient's individualized anatomy. This helps the neurosurgeons achieve the maximal safe removal of the tumor while avoiding adjacent brain networks.