This month the PNA Spotlight focuses on Dr. Lewis Z. Leng, a board-certified neurosurgeon at Sutter Health/California Pacific Medical Center. He also serves as Department Head of Neurosurgery for Sutter West Bay Medical Group and as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurology at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. In addition he is Co-Director of Endoscopic Skull Base and Pituitary Surgery, and Chair of the Neurosciences Quality Improvement Committee at CPMC.
Dr. Leng received his B.A. from University of California at Berkeley. He earned his medical degree from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania during which time he was a 21st Century Scholar and received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship. Dr. Leng completed his residency in neurosurgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was kind enough to answer a series of questions from the PNA. His answers follow.
What inspired you to choose your career path?
Neural Network Modeling
This month the PNA Medical Corner spotlights an article co-authored by Dr. Martin Weiss, chairman of neurosurgery at USC and a member of the PNA. The study used neural network modeling to look at the factors that lead to negative outcomes, which include the presence of a tumor that has recurred after surgery and visual deficits that did not improve after surgery. The authors analyzed the outcomes for 341 patients with acromegaly, Cushings or a mammosomatotroph adenoma, 81 of whom had sub-optimal outcomes. Their modeling was able to predict with 87.1% accuracy which patients are more at risk for a poor outcome.
Abstract:
Neural network modeling for prediction of recurrence, progression, and hormonal non-remission in patients following resection of functional pituitary adenomas
Shane Shahrestani 1 2, Tyler Cardinal 3, Alexander Micko 3 4, Ben A Strickland 3, Dhiraj J Pangal 3, Guillaume Kugener 3, Martin H Weiss 3, John Carmichael 3, Gabriel Zada 3 Affiliations expand
• PMID: 33528731 DOI: 10.1007/s11102-021-01128-5
