Carle Illinois College of Medicine Professor Wael Mostafa lives in the high-stakes, demanding, and ever-changing medical specialty of neurosurgery. By pushing boundaries in clinical practice, innovative research, medical education, and leadership, Mostafa has made it his life’s work to make a life-changing impact on some of the sickest patients.
A specialist in brain and skull-base surgeries, Mostafa works with a multidisciplinary team to treat patients with serious conditions such as aneurysms, complex brain tumors, and stroke. The work is challenging and precise, often with life-or-death consequences. He says he draws strength and inspiration from patients whose lives have been improved or lengthened by his team’s care. “This is what keeps me going when you see that you’ve helped somebody, that you’ve changed the life of somebody, and that you helped a family,” he said.
Mostafa is committed to leading the development and adoption of advanced technologies to improve patient outcomes. “Neurosurgery changes not by the year but by the month. Ten to 15 years ago, we were focused on maximizing the extent of resection for tumors; now we are focusing on both the extent of resection and the quality of life to minimize morbidity and how to prolong survival,” Mostafa said.
Mostafa’s translational research focuses on improving current technologies and creating new treatments to benefit patients. Mostafa worked with CI MED Professor Paul Hergenrother from the U. of I. Department of Chemistry to adapt the use of 5-ALA, a naturally occurring substance given to patients before surgery that causes tumor cells to glow or fluoresce under blue light. “The idea was to combine fluorescence with chemotherapy for patients with glioblastoma (the most common and deadly form of primary brain cancer). After trial and error, we found the right agent and there’s a patent underway to merge 5-ALA and Temodar (aka, temozolomide, a chemotherapy drug used to treat certain types of brain cancer),” Mostafa said.
Mostafa helps lead another research project tapping into the power and resolution of 7Tesla MRI technology to study why some patients whose cancer has recently spread from other organs to the brain don’t respond well to treatment. “We are scanning them with 7Tesla MRI to see if there is micrometastasis that we cannot see on the regular (lower resolution) 1.54 or 3T MRI scanners. And we’re following up clinically to see if those micrometastases are a reason for treatment failure,” Mostafa said, emphasizing that CI MED students are involved in each of his research projects.
Mostafa also collaborates with fellow CI MED faculty member Hua Wang on his project to engineer vaccines to fight glioblastoma.
On the clinical front, Mostafa also champions the use of new technologies, including LITT (Laser interstitial thermal therapy) which uses laser technology to destroy tumor cells. “The advancement of visualization and optics is becoming an expectation. We are using more and more minimally invasive techniques,” he said. His team also recently added GammaTile technology to its arsenal, delivering targeted radiation therapy to the surgical site immediately following tumor removal. The method offers another tool to provide hope to patients with operable brain tumors.
Each August, Mostafa organizes a hands-on skull-base and endoscopy course that attracts neurosurgical residents and fellows from across the Midwest and even internationally. The event features top experts in the field, providing a unique learning opportunity for CI MED students who are interested in pursuing neurosurgery as a specialty.
As the head of neurosurgery and the associate medical director of the Carle Neuroscience Institute at Carle Health, Mostafa envisions the growth of a center of excellence at the Carle Neuroscience Institute that incorporates innovative research, medical education involving CI MED students, and world-class neurosurgical care.