From March 15 to March 17, the 3rd Congress of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery was held in Moscow. The Congress covered the following topics: movement disorders, epilepsy, spasticity, chronic pain syndromes, neuroimaging and neuronavigation. There were 10 presentations by specialists of Almazov Centre, covering various areas of functional neurosurgery: treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy (V. G. Nezdrovina, S. M. Malyshev, G. V. Odintsova, R. V. Semenov), deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease (V. G. Nezdorovina), DBS therapy for tremor in multiple sclerosis (A. A. Oleinik), trigeminal neuralgia (M. A. Naumov), psychiatric comorbidity in patients with functional neurosurgical disorders (A. A. Smirnova).
Specialists of Children’s Neurosurgery Department headed by A. V. Kim also gave presentations. They spoke about the latest advances for cerebral palsy treatment in pediatric practice: selective dorsal rhizotomy (K.V. Sysoev) and chronic intrathecal baclofen therapy (E.O. Sereda).
Specialists of Almazov Centre actively contributed to the discussions in round tables and breakout sessions on the most relevant areas of functional neurosurgery.
The congress featured a regular meeting of the Russian Society of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery established in 2019. The participants discussed the issues of providing medical care to patients in the field of functional neurosurgery. The meeting presented a final report on the work of departments and specialists of Russian organizations and approved the Education Committee for the main areas of functional neurosurgery.
Dr. Victoria Nezdorovina, Head of Functional Neurosurgery Department No. 2 of Polenov Neurosurgical Institute (branch of Almazov Centre) was elected as the new President of the Society for the next 4 years. The department was established with the aim of developing functional neurosurgery, an area that combines interventional, open, stereotactic destructive and neuromodulation treatment methods using high-tech equipment and devices for the treatment of a wide range of diseases, mainly of the nervous system.
The department led by Dr. Nezdorovina has been developing neuromodulation technologies, in particular chronic deep brain stimulation, introducing selective destructive interventions on the brain and spinal cord, improving the existing and developing new methods for the diagnosis and surgical treatment of epilepsy.
The election of Victoria Nezdorovina is not only a high recognition by the professional community of the department’s achievements, but also recognition of the activities of Polenov Neurosurgical Institute led by Prof. Konstantin Samochernykh and Almazov Centre as a whole, aimed at improving the methods of functional neurosurgery and increasing the effectiveness of patient treatment.