Generally (and I am based in the UK so can't advise for PA), you want a pituitary neurosurgeon who does these a lot. Now try to quantify "a lot"... I think several hundred such surgeries, and you would want them to be doing them every month to keep their practice up.

To give an idea, my pituitary neurosurgeon had done around 500 such surgeries. He had me and another patient the day that I went in for my op.

You can't guarantee that the even best will get it "all" as they are notoriously tricky. However, you do want a pituitary neurosurgeon that has better than average rates of successful resection. He should be able to tell you how his success rates are with macroadenomas (over 10mm) and microadenomas (under 10mm).

John

You can call the surgeon's office that your endocrinologist recommended. Just ask "How many pituitary surgeries has Dr. ... done"? They will answer your question without any problem.
Ulrike

Keep in mind that there are a lot of different kinds of pituitary tumors. Even though acro is caused by a specific, rare tumor, the surgeon may also be removing a lot of different pit tumors. This is not a negative, just means he may get more practice than you might assume.

I recommend Dr Jho at drjho.com.....excellent staff, excellent surgeon, popular among the NFL stars for surgery...endoscopic,...no drilling, no packing, ..I know of several people who used him and had success...so far, me too! 8 weeks PO. Allegheny General , Pittsburgh, PA . Philly is too small.....IMO..I also heard of Dr Salatori, John Hopkins, Balitomore, MD ,,,,,,also endoscopic trans...blah , blah, bah,,,,,,,he secializes in research for Acromegaly, Look for him under John Hopkins vie Google.
here: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/specialty_areas/pituitary_center/

I need an Endo closer to me..,,,,I am possibly picking him since dxed with Acro. Hey, let me know what you think!

Sincerely, KIM

Oh, I also have pictures of the staff and the hospital room......private room with guest allowed for over night stays. I can e mail privately.

hi there, welcome to the group. i hurt my hand so it's hard to type. see my previous post and all responses at:
http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Acromegaly/forum/9001896-best-surgeons

whoever you use, they should have over 500 surgeries or more, the more the better. from my research i would recommend Ed Laws in Boston b/c he's done around 5,000 pituitaries - probably the most experienced pit. surgeon in usa. also, the two others i list there - Kelly in CA, or Gardner at Univ of Pittsburgh are good too.

best of luck! peace, sunny

Hi Socko

Good luck with your search for a neurosurgeon, unfortunately I can't give any help with picking one as I'm also in the UK. One factor to bear in mind is that the better neurosurgeons might have a slightly less success rate than others, this is probably due to them seeing more complicated and intiricate cases, which will affect their overall sucess rate. I would recommend seeing at least 2 surgeons and get their opinions of success.

It's a tricky disease and unfortunately a 'cure' is difficult to achieve in a lot of cases, but hopefully they will debulk the tumour and relieve you of some of the most obvious problems.

Wishing you lots of luck.

Hi, Paul. I'm sorry you are here. I was diagnosed a year ago and had surgery in April 2009. After getting advice from this group on exactly the info you are looking for,then beginning to shop for a team to do my surgery, my first choice was University of Pittsburg. I talked to Dr. Prevedello several times by phone and felt very comfortable with what he had to say. I had sent my diagnostic MRI and other labs to him. I wanted very badly to go there but due to financial issues which were better handled here in-state in Tennessee, I ended up having my surgery and followups done at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. I envy you for being so close to Pittsburg, but I think Dr. Weaver and his team at Vanderbilt have done as good a job as anyone could expect and have been a wonderful group to work with this year. I suggest you check out University of Pittsburgh's website. They have also done a lot of publishing in med journals about the surgeries which were extremely helpful to me in learning what to expect. Above all, I learned from UofPittsburgh what kind of surgery to insist on, and insist I did, for which I shall be forever grateful, otherwise the outcome might have been different had I not known.

Eileen