Research Summary

Ivan H. El-Sayed, MD, is Professor of Clinical Otolaryngology and the Director of the Otolaryngology Minimally Invasive Skull Base Surgery program and center in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (OHNS) at the University of California, San Francisco. As of 2015, he has been elected to the North American Skull Base Society Directors Board, and he is recently named the Vice Chair of the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Skull Base Committee. He has also been the Co-Course Director for Stryker-UCSF Resident Skull Base Approaches Course since 2009. Dr. El-Sayed completed his medical degree and internship from Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts. He completed his otolaryngology residency from Boston University, followed by a head and neck surgical oncology fellowship from UCSF. He lectures nationally and internationally on various topics related to head and neck oncology.

Dr. El-Sayed’s clinical focus is skull base surgery and he has developed the minimally invasive program into a nationally recognized program along with his neurosurgical colleagues. The program and center offers a unique capability of providing both endoscopic and open approaches to tailor the approach to the lesion. He has a broad surgical experience having performed over 500 surgical procedures on tumors of the nasal cavity/paranasal sinuses, infratemporal fossa, skull base and pituitary glands in over a decade of experience. He is also interested in the outcomes of research and clinical innovations through novel approach development. His research program goal is to develop 1) novel endoscopic surgical approaches and 2) nanotechnologies as multifunctional theranostic devices for the detection, destruction, and monitoring of oral cancer.

Education

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, Sc. B, 1992, Neuroscience
Boston University Medical School, Boston, MA, M.D., 1992-1996, Medicine
Boston University Medical Ctr, Boston, MA, 1996-2001, Otolaryngology-HNS
University of California, San Francisco, Postdoctoral, 2002-2003, Head and Neck Oncology-Fellowship

Honors & Awards

  • 1995
    Member, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society
  • 1998
    First Place: Ethics of Cochlear Implantation in Young Children, New England Otolaryngology Society
  • 2002
    U.S. Patent: Spectroscopic Diagnostics for Bacteria in Biologic Samples. Ivan El-Sayed, MD and Mostafa El-Sayed, PhD
  • 2002-2012
    Board Certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology
  • 2003
    THANKS Star Award, UCSF Medical Center
  • 2005
    "Quality Award" UCSF Medical Center Quality Improvement Office. For: Altered Airway PI Project. Member of the committee which developed this form.
  • 2007
    U.S. Patent: GTRC 3424 U.S.S.N. 11/913,915 "Shape Tunable Plasmonic Nanoparticles" Mostafa A. El-Sayed and Ivan Homer El-Sayed (Provisional Patent Filed 2005)
  • 2007
    "Hot Paper", American Chemical Society Publications, first author. [As defined by the ACS: "Hot Papers are articles published within the last two years receiving the most citations over the most recent two-month period. In a typical two-month period, Essential Science Indicators recognizes more than 200 total Hot Papers in chemistry.] For Article: Surface Plasmon Resonance Scattering and Absorption of anti-EGFR Antibody Conjugated Gold Nanoparticles in Cancer Diagnostics: Applications in Oral Cancer. Nano Lett. 2005.
  • 2007
    Outstanding Productive Physician and Surgeon, Certificate of Accomplishment, Department of Otolaryngology, UCSF
  • 2007
    "Most Accessed Article" for the 3rd quarter of 2007, American Chemical Society Publications. For article: "Gold Nanorods for Nuclear Targeting. BioconjugChemistry 2007.
  • 2008
    "Most Accessed Article" for first quarter 2008, American Chemical Society Publications: For article: Calculated Absorption and Scattering Properties of Gold Nanoparticles of Different Size, Shape, and Composition: Applications in Biological Imaging and Biomedicine. J. Phys. Chem. B.; (Article); 2006
  • 2008
    "Editor Selected Papers in Imaging"- Bioconjugate Chemistry- For Article: Peptide-Conjugated Gold Nanorods for Nuclear Targeting. Bioconjug Chem. 2007 Sep-Oct;18(5):1490-7. Epub 2007 Jul 13.
  • 2008
    #1 ranked article in citations in the field of Chemistry for 2007. Described by ScienceWatch. For article: 14. Huang X, El-Sayed IH, Qian W, El-Sayed MA. Cancer Cell Imaging and Photothermal Therapy in the Near-Infrared Region by Using Gold Nanorods. J Am Chem Soc. 2006 Feb 15;128(6):2115-2120.
  • 2008
    "Hot Paper", American Chemical Society Publications. For article: Cancer cell imaging and photothermal therapy in the near-infrared region by using gold nanorods, J Am Chem Soc 2006.
  • 2008
    "Most Cited Author"- First author- recognized as one of the top 20 cited papers in Cancer Letters toward the calculation of the 2007 impact factor. Cancer Letters. 2006 Jul 28;239(1):129-35.

Selected Publications

  1. Bartoletti V, Norri N, El-Sayed I, Abla AA, Rodriguez Rubio R. Endonasal Endoscopic Anatomy of the Orbito-Cavernous-Pterygopalatine Interface: Multilayer Anatomical Description and Landmarks to Define the Limits of the Compartments. World Neurosurg. 2023 Jul 06.  View on PubMed
  2. Osorio RC, Aabedi AA, El-Sayed IH, Gurrola J, Goldschmidt E. Superior Hypophyseal Artery Intraoperative Indocyanine Green Angiogram as a Predictor of Postoperative Visual Function After Endoscopic Endonasal Surgery. Oper Neurosurg (Hagerstown). 2023 Oct 01; 25(4):379-385.  View on PubMed
  3. Tonetti DA, Rinaldo L, Raygor KP, Dubnicoff TB, El-Sayed IH, Abla AA. Common Carotid-Greater Saphenous-M2 Bypass for Myoepithelial Carcinoma Encasing the Carotid Artery. World Neurosurg. 2023 Jun 01; 177:19.  View on PubMed
  4. Bartoletti V, Rios-Zermeno J, El-Sayed I, Abla AA, Rodriguez Rubio R. Morphometric Analysis of the Ophthalmic and Central Retinal Arteries via the Endoscopic Endonasal Trans-ethmoidal Approach: Surgical Relevance of Vascular Components Within the Medial Intraconal Zones. World Neurosurg. 2023 Jul; 175:e1133-e1143.  View on PubMed
  5. Lee RH, Evans C, Laus J, Sanchez C, Wai KC, Knott PD, Seth R, El-Sayed IH, George JR, Ryan WR, Heaton CM, Park AM, Ha PK. Patterns of Postoperative Trismus Following Mandibulectomy and Fibula Free Flap Reconstruction. Cancers (Basel). 2023 Jan 16; 15(2).  View on PubMed
  6. Reihl S, Kim Y, Harmon D, El-Sayed IH, Abla A, Rodriguez Rubio R. A Minimalistic Technique for Neural Tissue Preservation and Neuroanatomical Education: Quantitative Study of the Elnady Technique on Human Cadaveric Specimens. Cureus. 2022 Nov; 14(11):e31588.  View on PubMed
  7. Payman A, Rios Zermeno J, Hirpara A, El-Sayed IH, Abla A, Rodriguez Rubio R. Immersive Surgical Anatomy of the Far-Lateral Approach. Cureus. 2022 Nov; 14(11):e31257.  View on PubMed
  8. David AP, Loftus PA, Russell MS, Goldberg AN, El-Sayed IH, Jan TA, Roland LT. RNA Sequencing and Gene Ontology Analysis in Acute Invasive Fungal Sinusitis. Am J Rhinol Allergy. 2023 Jan; 37(1):78-82.  View on PubMed
  9. Osorio RC, Pereira MP, Oh T, Joshi RS, Haddad AF, Pereira KM, Donohue KC, Peeran Z, Carson W, Badani A, Wang EJ, Sudhir S, Chandra A, Jain S, Beniwal A, Gurrola J, El-Sayed IH, Blevins LS, Theodosopoulos PV, Kunwar S, Aghi MK. Correlation between tumor volume and serum prolactin and its effect on surgical outcomes in a cohort of 219 prolactinoma patients. J Neurosurg. 2022 Oct 14; 1-11.  View on PubMed
  10. El-Sayed IH, Jiam NT, Theodosopoulos PV, McDermott MW, Gurrola JG, Aghi MK. Formal Closure of Endoscopic Endonasal Skull Base Defects With a "Bow Tie" Tri-Layer Graft. Laryngoscope. 2023 Jul; 133(7):1568-1575.  View on PubMed
  11. Morshed RA, El-Sayed IH, Goldschmidt E. Endoscopic Endonasal Transpterygoid Approach for Resection of a Meckel Cave Epidermoid Cyst: 2-Dimensional Operative Video. Oper Neurosurg (Hagerstown). 2022 08 01; 23(2):e122.  View on PubMed
  12. Stanford-Moore GB, Sola AM, Chan J, El-Sayed I, George J, Ha P, Ryan WR, Heaton CM. Adjuvant therapy improves survival in pT4aN0 oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma with bone invasion. Am J Otolaryngol. 2022 Mar-Apr; 43(2):103303.  View on PubMed
  13. Osorio RC, Pereira MP, Joshi RS, Donohue KC, Sneed P, Braunstein S, Theodosopoulos PV, El-Sayed IH, Gurrola J, Kunwar S, Blevins LS, Aghi MK. Socioeconomic predictors of case presentations and outcomes in 225 nonfunctional pituitary adenoma resections. J Neurosurg. 2021 Oct 01; 1-12.  View on PubMed
  14. Zhu H, Vigo V, Ahluwalia A, El-Sayed I, Abla AA, Rubio RR. Assessment of Arterial Configurations of the Suprachiasmatic Region from the Endoscopic Endonasal Perspective: A Cadaveric Anatomical Study. World Neurosurg. 2021 11; 155:e460-e471.  View on PubMed
  15. Rodriguez Rubio R, Xie W, Vigo V, Lee A, Tomasi OS, El-Sayed IH, Abla A. Immersive Surgical Anatomy of the Retrosigmoid Approach. Cureus. 2021 Jun; 13(6):e16068.  View on PubMed
  16. Lee RH, Salesky M, Benjamin T, El-Sayed IH, George JR, Ha PK, Ryan WR, Heaton CM. Impact of Smoking and Primary Tumor Subsite on Recurrence in HPV-Associated Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2022 04; 166(4):704-711.  View on PubMed
  17. Jiam NT, David AP, Formeister EJ, Gurrola J, Aghi M, Theodosopoulos P, Villanueva-Meyer J, McDermott MW, El-Sayed IH. Presentation and management of post-operative cerebrospinal fluid leaks after sphenoclival expanded endonasal surgery: A single institution experience. J Clin Neurosci. 2021 Sep; 91:13-19.  View on PubMed
  18. Brodie KD, Zebolsky AL, Ochoa E, Ha PK, Heaton CM, El-Sayed IH, Ryan WR. A prospective study of patient-reported xerostomia-related outcomes after parotidectomy. Laryngoscope Investig Otolaryngol. 2021 Aug; 6(4):683-689.  View on PubMed
  19. Young JS, Oh T, Arora T, Blevins LS, Aghi MK, El-Sayed IH, Kunwar S, Theodosopoulos PV. Letter: COVID Conundrum: Postoperative COVID-19 Infections Following Endonasal Transsphenoidal Pituitary Surgery. Neurosurgery. 2021 05 13; 88(6):E571-E572.  View on PubMed
  20. Giurintano JP, Gurrola J, Theodosopoulos PV, El-Sayed IH. Use of Ultrasound for Navigating the Internal Carotid Artery in Revision Endoscopic Endonasal Skull Base Surgery. Cureus. 2021 Feb 25; 13(2):e13547.  View on PubMed

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