Steven M. Zeitels

Steven Marc Zeitels
Born (1957-11-07) 7 November 1957 (age 67)
New York City, New York, United States
Known forsurgical innovation, voice procedures (phonosurgery), vocal cord cancer surgery
Scientific career
InstitutionsHarvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital

Steven Marc Zeitels (born November 7, 1957) is the Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation (MGH Voice Center).

Career

Zeitels grew up in New Rochelle, New York. He graduated from the BU School of Medicine in 1982.[1] He completed the BU - Tufts combined Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Program in 1987 as well as a Head & Neck Surgical Oncology Fellowship at BU and the Boston Veterans Affairs Medical Center in 1988.[citation needed]

In 2004, the first endowed Chair in Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School was created for him.[citation needed]

Zeitels has designed numerous new voice restoration procedures (phonosurgery) and surgical instruments, and holds six patents for these innovations.[citation needed]

He is widely acknowledged for novel laser applications to treat dysplasia and cancer as well as laryngeal papillomatosis, polyps, nodules. He is also known for perfecting office-based laryngeal laser surgery. He introduced angiolytic laser treatment of vocal cord cancer, which evolved from Judah Folkman’s concepts of tumor angiogenesis and Rox Anderson’s theory of selective photothermolysis.

He received the 2014 Broyles Maloney Award of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association.

Zeitels has designed procedures to restore the voice of those who have had vocal paresis and paralysis. His techniques were featured in a National Geographic Channel documentary, “The Incredible Human Machine”, which highlighted Zeitels’ microsurgery on Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.

Zeitels also performed an endoscopic removal of a tongue-base larynx cancer on Tom Hamilton, Aerosmith’s bass guitarist after radiation and chemotherapy failed to control his advanced throat cancer.[2]

Zeitels removed precancerous dysplasia from Roger Daltrey's vocal fold just one month prior to his 2010 Super Bowl performance.[3] In 2012, there was broad international coverage of Zeitels' microsurgery to restore Adele's voice; she thanked him in the acceptance of the first of her six Grammy Awards.[4][5][6]

Larry Page, the founder of Google, described his difficulties with vocal nerve injury and has been a supporter of Zeitels and the Voice Health Institute.[7][8][9] Zeitels conceived and directs the Voice Restoration Research Program, which is a collaborative effort of investigators at Harvard and MGH, as well as Robert Langer at MIT. They have spent over a decade developing a biomaterial that would restore the largest majority of human voice loss and the research group received the 2010 Broyles Maloney Award of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association for their effort. They hope to initiate human trials to test the new vocal biogel in 2018.[10]

Personal life

While in Chile lecturing as a guest of the Chilean Society of Otolaryngology in 2001 he met Maria Nuria Hananias, a Chilean otolaryngological surgeon. Married in 2003, they have two children, a boy and a girl.[11]

Recognition

  • 2012 Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People (14th)[12]
  • 2012 Rolling Stone’s 25 Best Things in Rock (13th)[13]

References

  1. ^ Colapinto, John (4 March 2013), "Giving Voice : A Surgeon Pioneers Methods to Help Singers Sing Again", The New Yorker, p. 50
  2. ^ "Tom Hamilton: Saving Voices With Lasers - WABC-TV NYC". 29 August 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  3. ^ "The Who - Daltrey Was Recovering From Secret Throat Surgery At Super Bowl Gig". 5 January 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  4. ^ "Adele's MGH Doctor Describes 'State-Of-The-Art' Voice Surgery". Retrieved 2016-07-05.
  5. ^ "Meet Adele's vocal cord surgeon, Dr. Steven Zeitels". CBS News. Retrieved 2016-07-05.
  6. ^ "Meet Music's Top Throat Doctors Who've Saved the Voices of Adele, Sam Smith and More". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-07-05.
  7. ^ Guglielmo, Connie. "Google CEO Larry Page Reveals Surgery Fix For His Hoarse Voice". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-07-05.
  8. ^ "Google's Larry Page Donates Millions for Research on Voice Loss". Retrieved 2016-07-05.
  9. ^ Efrati, Amir; Reddy, Sumathi (2013-05-14). "Vocal-Cord Paralysis Afflicts Google CEO Larry Page". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-07-05.
  10. ^ "Stars align for synthetic vocal cord trials". Reuters. 13 June 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  11. ^ Colapinto, John (4 March 2013), "Giving Voice : A Surgeon Pioneers Methods to Help Singers Sing Again", The New Yorker, p. 54
  12. ^ "How To Save Adele And Improve Medicine". 1 June 2012. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  13. ^ "Mass. General cancer doc lands in Rolling Stone cover story". 22 April 2012. Retrieved 22 April 2012.