Pittsburgh, March 27, 2025 -- Zoher Ghogawala, MD, FACS, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at UMass Chan Medical School, will serve as the special guest speaker May 7 at the 2025 lecture honoring Pitt neurosurgery icon Peter J. Jannetta, MD. Dr. Ghogawala will provide a talk on “Optimizing Neurological Surgery: How Do We Evaluate Cost?” beginning at 7:15 a.m. in the University of Pittsburgh's Scaife Hall, Room 4585.
Dr. Ghogawala is active in the surgical treatment of patients with disorders of the spine and carotid vascular disease. His research focuses on comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and neurosurgical outcomes, exploring the effectiveness, benefits, and sometimes harmful results of different treatment options. He was the principal investigator for the recently completed national, externally funded SLIP study, a randomized clinical trial that compared fusion versus no fusion following spinal decompression. This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Ghogawala recently received NIH and PCORI funding support to conduct a multi-center prospective RCT that aims to compare ventral versus dorsal surgery options for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM-S Trial). The trial randomized 163 patients with cervical myelopathy and results of the trial were just published in JAMA in March 2021.
Dr. Ghogawala has published over 100 scientific publications and has given over 90 invited visiting professor lectures. He recently edited and published the textbook The Evidence for Neurosurgery as well as co-authored the newly updated Lumbar Fusion Guidelines.
Dr. Ghogawala recently served as vice-president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and is chair of the cervical spine research society registry committee. He is also on the board of directors of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and the Cervical Spine Research Society. He is first vice president of the NASS and is past chair of the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves.
Dr. Ghogawala completed his undergraduate degree magna cum laude at Harvard University and graduated from Harvard Medical School with high honors in 1991. He completed his residency training in neurological surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The Peter J. Jannetta Lectureship is held annually in honor of the innovative former chair of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurosurgery who passed away in April of 2016. Dr. Jannetta served as chair of the department for 25 years beginning in 1971. He was internationally acclaimed for his development of microvascular decompression (MVD), an innovative procedure that moved blood vessels away from the trigeminal nerve, alleviating chronic pain and spasms in facial muscles. The procedure became commonly known as the ‘Jannetta Procedure’ and brought relief to thousands.
For more information on the Jannetta Lecture, please contact Barb Deriggi at 412-647-6358.