Dr. Dean Chou Featured Presenter at The Society for Neuro-Oncology’s 28th Annual Meeting

Earlier this month, Dean Chou traveled to the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society of Neuro-Oncology (SNO) in Vancouver, Canada. A multidisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting advances in neuro-oncology through research and education, SNO serves as the “world’s largest neuro-oncology conference,” regularly attracting over 2600 researchers and clinician scientists from over 40 countries, spanning all neuro-oncology disciplines, professions, and interests. The annual SNO meeting is the premier forum to share knowledge and gain insights on the future of neuro-oncology research and treatment. SNO’s 2023 theme, “Neuro-Oncology at the Intersections: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Improve Patient Outcomes,” is also a cornerstone of Columbia Neurosurgery’s culture of care through our team’s dedicated effort to treat the whole patient and provide the most comprehensive assessment to some of neuro-oncology’s most challenging cases.

This year, Dr. Chou was invited by Dr. Mark Bilsky at Memorial Sloan Kettering to participate as a speaker in the program’s Spine Tumor Symposium, where Dr. Chou discussed modern treatment paradigms of tumor management. 

He highlighted the field’s continued shift from larger surgeries to more minimally invasive procedures for spine tumors, many of which Dr. Chou has pioneered throughout his career. Specifically, he discussed when “en bloc excisions” (en bloc resection is a procedure of surgical oncology aiming to remove a tumoral mass in its entirety, surrounded by a continuous layer of healthy tissue. Source: NIH) should be performed and when minimally invasive options can be done. Dr. Chou states, “New treatment options and greater understanding have made spine tumor treatments more efficacious and with less risk and less morbidity.”

 Here at Columbia Neurosurgery, our team is uniquely positioned to offer our patients the full spectrum of treatment options, with deep expertise in both the breadth and depth of open, en bloc surgery to minimally invasive surgical techniques for spine tumors. Dr. Chou says, “My colleagues, Dr. Paul McCormick and Dr. Justin Neira and I collaborate closely to manage the spine tumors at Columbia Neurosurgery as a team effort. We are honored to continue serving the medical community through such forums as SNO to provide new perspectives and case discussions that highlight the rapid innovations that continue to improve patient outcomes.”