Andrea Vambutas, MD

Description

About Andrea Vambutas MD, FACSDr. Andrea Vambutas is the Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and North Shore University Hospital. She is also Director for the Center of Hearing & Balance at the New York Head & Neck Institute. She is also the Medical Director of the Apelian Cochlear Implant Program and Professor of Otolaryngology & Molecular Medicine. She was instrumental in developing the Apelian Cochlear Implant Center, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011. The center cares for infants and adults. The cochlear implant team is comprised of surgeons, audiologists, speech pathologists, social workers, sign language interpreters and deaf educators who provide all aspects of evaluation prior to, and rehabilitation following cochlear implantation. The center has been the recipient of many complicated otologic cases, and difficult clinical problems. Dr. Vambutas is a clinician-scientist that studies immune responses and their effect on hearing. There are three unique forms of hearing loss that may be amenable to medical therapy for recovery of natural hearing: Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease, Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss and Meniere s Disease. Timely treatment with steroids results in hearing recovery in about 60% of cases. Unfortunately, that response is lost over time with repetitive treatment. For those that fail to respond to corticosteroids, there are no alternate treatments. Deteriorating hearing is rehabilitated with hearing aids or cochlear implants. Despite how beneficial these devices are, they do not select for what we want to hear, unlike our brains that do it naturally and seamlessly. Her research interests are in the restoration of natural hearing in these steroid resistant patients. To this end, her laboratory has identified the critical role of an inflammatory protein, interleukin-1 (IL-1), in this disease. Her research group is running a NIH-sponsored phase I open-label clinical trial to determine if blockade of IL-1 can prevent further hearing loss in these steroid-resistant individuals (www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT01267994). Her laboratory is also trying to better understand the molecular mechanisms behind these diseases, specifically in distinguishing steroid sensitive and resistant hearing loss which would identify new biologic markers of disease. Awards and Recognition:Castle Connolley, Best DoctorsBest Doctors in AmericaOutstanding Teacher Awards, North Shore-LIJ Health System & Montefiore Medical CenterService Award, American Academy of Otolaryngology HNSProfessional Affiliations:Diplomat: American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Fellow: American College of Surgeons Fellow, American Neurotology SocietyElected Member: New York Otologic SocietyElected Member: Henry Kunkel SocietyElected Member: American Association of Immunologists