What Is Neurosurgery?

Neurosurgery is the practice of medicine which deals with diseases of the nervous system, including the spine and spinal cord. The surgical treatment of these diseases requires the skill and expertise of a surgeon who is specially trained - hence the term neurosurgeon.

A neurosurgeon is not just a "brain surgeon", but treats patients with many different illnesses. The majority of the patients treated by neurosurgeons include those with: back or leg pain; neck or arm pain; strokes; tumors of the brain, spine or spinal cord; trauma to the brain, spine or spinal cord; abnormalities of blood vessels within the brain, spine or spinal cord; and abnormalities of nerves throughout the body.

Although neurosurgery is by nature a surgical field, many patients with neurological illnesses which do not require surgery often seek the opinion of a neurosurgeon to discuss non-surgical or minimally invasive treatments for their problems.

Some of these minimally invasive and non-surgical treatments include: endoscopic surgery, computer assisted stereotactic surgery, stereotactic radiosurgery (i.e., using radiation therapy to treat lesions of the nervous system), and interventional radiology (i.e., treating lesions in the blood vessels of the nervous system).

In order to treat complex neurological illnesses, neurosurgeons often work in conjunction with other medical specialists. These include neurologists, neuroradiologists, electrophysicologists, ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists, radiation oncologists, rehabilitation physicians, and orthopedic surgeons. This "team approach" assures the delivery of "state-of-the-art" care, while allowing the neurosurgeon to focus on the neurological problem and to therefore determine the best treatment options for each patient.

In this section, you will learn about the following:

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