rehabilitation and progressive mobilization,
and is essential to define therapeutic goals and
meet the challenges that our patients offer.
The Neuroendocrinology Service, headed by Dr.
Monica Gadelha, performs approximately 200
consultations per month. A multidisciplinary
pituitary team meets every week to discuss
all surgical cases, and dynamic tests for
evaluation of pituitary hormone deficiencies
and simultaneous bilateral petrosus sinus
sampling for investigation of the etiology
of hypercortisolism are also performed in
a regular basis. The team is also very active
in research activities, and in the few years
since its opening, IECPN has already become
a neuroendocrinology reference center for the diagnosis
and treatment of pituitary diseases, receiving residents and
postgraduate students from seven other hospitals located in the
city of Rio de Janeiro to develop their projects.
As a major part of its research, the institute’s Neuropathology and
Molecular Genetics Laboratory develops a translational research
focusing on the molecular basis of pituitary adenomas and on the
establishment of biomarkers of response to different treatments
for pituitary tumors.
In the Laboratory of Neuropathology, all neurosurgical specimens
are processed for histopathological analysis and diagnosis and,
when necessary, immuno-histochemistry is performed to help in
the classification and grading of the tumors. In selected tumors,
particularly diffuse gliomas, IDH1, P53 and ATRX mutations
are investigated with immuno-histochemistry, and, if necessary,
molecular methods can also be used. Besides that, the status of
hormonal receptors in meningiomas, pituitary adenomas, the
presence of infectious agents and inflammatory cells, as well as
malformations causing epilepsy, can also be detected.
Our clinical research group in neurocritical care is led by Dr.
Cassia Righy, focusing mainly in Subarachnoid Hemorrhage
FEATURED PROGRAM
(SAH) and Sepsis in neurocritically ill patients. In cooperation
with other high-volume centers in Brazil, our group has already
developed a prospective online based registry of SAH patients,
which includes more than 300 patients from IECPN. Early analysis
of our data has allowed us to evaluate functional outcomes and
compare our results to other high-volume, high-quality centers
in the world, and our goal for the next few years is to have
multicenter epidemiological data on SAH, which has not been
reported in Brazil.
Other of our main research areas involve molecular biology,
neuropathology and neuroendocrinology. Translational
research projects, such as the investigation of microcephaly
and the effects of ZIKA virus on normal glial cells and glioma
cells, are being conducted in the institute’s laboratories
in cooperation with other federal universities. Other
example involves the Department of Epilepsy that focuses
on the mRNA and protein profile of the corpus callosum
and its epileptogenic potential. Moreover, the Laboratory
of Biomedicine studies the dynamic transition between
glioblastoma stem cells and non-stem glioblastoma cells,
in order to better understand tumor progression in such an
aggressive disease. This line of research employs a spectral
approach to: 1) identify new biomarkers such as microRNAs
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