Dr. Joseph Carnevale, who has completed his sixth year of neurosurgical residency at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded the 2023 Michael L. J. Apuzzo Resident Literature Award for Creativity and Innovation. The Apuzzo Award, established in 2017, recognizes outstanding work by a Weill Cornell Medicine neurosurgery resident that most exemplifies original thinking and creativity. This was Dr. Carnevale’s second consecutive win of the Apuzzo Award.
Dr. Carnevale’s winning paper is “Endonasal, Supraorbital and Transorbital: Minimal Access Endoscope-Assisted Surgical Approaches for Meningiomas in the Anterior and Middle Cranial Fossae,” which he co-authored with Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz. The paper evaluated the case selection process for three minimally invasive endoscope-assisted approaches to the anterior skull base. The study looked at gross total resection and extent of resection, visual and olfactory outcomes, and postoperative complications in patients who had undergone surgery that utilized the endonasal (EEA), supraorbital (SOA), or transorbital (TOA) approaches for newly diagnosed meningiomas of the anterior and middle fossa skull base between 2007 and 2022.
Using tumor volume heat maps, Dr. Carnevale and his co-authors identified the optimal choice of procedure based on the locations of the meningiomas. They concluded that case selection is paramount, since each minimally invasive approach provides access to a unique and limited area of the skull base.
“This award in its essence pays tribute to the concept of originality and the power of the idea," says Dr. Apuzzo. "Novel ideas are the catalysts for progress.The development of creative and original thinking is one important goals in the Cornell residency program. This work carries the spirit of the award. The Carnevale paper offers a detailed comparison of three unique surgical corridors of minimally invasive nature for management of craniobasal tumors that have traditionally been approached by more invasive methods. It is highlighted by refined decision-making issues. A second feature of the award is that it requires passing the challenge of external peer review at high level. This work is on track for publication in the Journal of Neurosurgery — one the field’s premier offerings.”
See also: A Storm of Ideas, in which Dr. Apuzzo talks about the award named for him
Additional co-authors included Abhinav Pandey; Cristopher Ramirez-Loera; Jacob L. Goldberg, MD; Evan D. Bander MD; Fraser Henderson, Jr., MD; Sumit N. Niogi, MD/PhD; Abtin Tabaee, MD; Ashutosh Kacker, MD; Vijay K. Anand, MD; Andrew Kim, MD; Apostolos John Tsiouris, MD; and Kyle Godfrey, MD.
Previous winners of the Apuzzo Award include Dr. Brenton Pennicooke (2017), Dr. Thomas Link (2018), Dr. Whitney Parker and Dr. Benjamin Rapoport, who shared the 2019 prize, Dr. Ibrahim Hussain, who won in 2020, and Dr. Benjamin Hartley, who took home the 2021 award. Dr. Carnevale won the 2022 award for his paper on “Visual Deterioration after Endonasal Endoscopic Skull Base Surgery: Causes, Treatments, and Outcomes,” which he also co-authored with Dr. Schwartz. See news item
See more about the Apuzzo Award
Also at the resident graduation dinner, Dr. Rafael Uribe was named winner of the 2023 Christopher Gaposchkin Research Prize