Dr. Tommaso Tufo

Acting Chairperson of the Department of Surgery / Consultant Neurosurgeon — Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery (Brain, Spine & Peripheral Nerve Surgery)

Fakeeh University Hospital

Experience:

19 years

Areas of Expertise and Treatment

Brain Surgery

• Brain surgery with neuronavigation and ultrasound
• Robotic and image-guided stereotactic biopsy
• Awake craniotomy with brain mapping and intraoperative monitoring
• Microsurgery and minimally invasive resection of brain tumours (gliomas, glioblastoma, meningiomas, metastases)
• Fluorescence-guided resection and Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (Visualase)
• Skull base and endoscopic surgery for vestibular schwannoma and pituitary tumours
• Treatment of hydrocephalus (shunts, endoscopic third ventriculostomy)
• Vascular neurosurgery: aneurysm clipping and AVM excision
• Craniotomy for haematomas

Spine and Peripheral Nerve Surgery

• Minimally invasive and complex spine surgery with intraoperative navigation and monitoring
• Microsurgery for disc herniation (cervical, lumbar and thoracic)
• Endoscopic spine surgery
• Cervical disc replacement and hybrid fusion
• Minimally invasive lumbar decompression and fusion (MIS TLIF, ALIF, XLIF)
• Spinal tumour and infection surgery
• Carpal tunnel and ulnar nerve decompression (mini-open, day case)
• Chiari malformation — foramen magnum decompression

Functional Neurosurgery & Pain Management

• Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, tremor, epilepsy, OCD and depression
• Frameless and robotic DBS
• Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) for epilepsy
• Spinal cord stimulation for intractable pain and failed back surgery syndrome
• Occipital nerve stimulation for cluster headaches and migraine
• Selective dorsal rhizotomy for spasticity
• Radiofrequency ablation and balloon compression for trigeminal neuralgia
• Spinal injections (epidural, facet joint and nerve root blocks)

Education

MD — Catholic University of Rome, Policlinico Gemelli University Hospital, Italy — 2005

Senior Fellowship in Neurotrauma and Skull Base Surgery — UNICAMP University of Campinas, Brazil / Curitiba Neurological Institute — 2008

Senior Fellowship in Functional Neurosurgery and Epilepsy Surgery — Walton Centre NHS Trust, Liverpool, UK — 2014

PhD in Neuroscience — Catholic University of Rome, Italy — 2015

Professional Memberships

• Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS)
• Società Italiana di Neurochirurgia (SINCH)
• International Neuromodulation Society (INS)

Languages

English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish