Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center Establishes New International, Multidisciplinary Society

New York, NY – March 18, 2003 – Before the 1990s, severe brain injuries leading to coma were widely considered untreatable. Then the “Decade of the Brain” brought dramatic new therapeutic interventions for stroke, neurotrauma, seizures, and other serious neurological disorders, including improved scanning techniques, brain pressure monitoring that measures oxygen levels in the brain, and regulated hypothermia that applies different levels of cooling during the first few days after trauma to protect the brain. At the same time, physicians within neurosurgery, neurology, anesthesiology, and critical care medicine developed expertise in the intensive care management of these conditions. But until now, these physicians have not had an opportunity to organize their efforts and establish a recognized subspecialty of medicine. Now Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, one of the leading facilities for treatment of life-threatening neurological disorders, will be home to the newly established Neurocritical Care Society, a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring together a diverse group of physicians from different specialties who treat neurological and neurosurgical patients in the critical care environment. “We are excited about the possibilities the creation of a professional organization presents,” says Dr. Stephan Mayer, associate professor of clinical neurology and neurosurgery at Columbia University and director of the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center site of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. “It is important for people to know and understand that there is often no reason to give up hope in an acute situation such as a brain hemorrhage or a severe stroke. Because of this field, people are recovering from levels of brain injury and depths of coma that 10 years ago were unthinkable.”

In 1995, Ditza Shalem, a 34-year-old mother from New York, slipped into a coma after suffering eclampsia, a circulatory condition characterized by seizures and brain swelling that occurs during pregnancy or immediately after delivery. “There is no doubt in my mind that were it not for the care and attention I received from Dr. Mayer and the Neuro-ICU team at Columbia, I would have died,” says Ms. Shalem. “This specialty is a critical area of medicine that deserves special attention.” Ms. Shalem remained in a coma for 24 days. Dr. Mayer and his team treated her for massive brain swelling, which caused brain pressure readings that at the time were felt to be incompatible with recovery, or even survival. “We gave treatments for brain swelling in doses that were unheard of, because we felt we had nothing else to lose,” says Dr. Mayer. “Ditza was in a state of complete anesthesia indistinguishable from brain death for three days. The fact that she made such a spectacular recovery in the end – and in other cases since then – has convinced me that we’ve underestimated the ability of aggressive ICU treatment to pull people through severe brain injury that used to be thought hopeless.” The mission of the Society for Neurocritical Care is five-fold: to provide quality patient care, to promote professional collaboration, to foster research, to develop training and education programs, and to advocate on behalf of patients to the public, policy-makers, and other health care professionals. The inaugural meeting of the society was held on Feb. 15 and 16, 2003, during the 28th International Stroke Conference in Phoenix, Ariz. Dr. Mayer serves on the society’s organizing committee and will act as associate editor of the society’s official journal, Neurocritical Care, slated to be launched in January 2004.