Stephen Ryu, M.D.

Stephen Ryu, M.D, is a graduate of Stanford University (B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering) and received his M.D. degree from the University of California at San Diego. He completed his internship and neurosurgical residency at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Ryu then completed a fellowship in spine surgery at Stanford University Medical Center focusing on minimally invasive spinal techniques.

Prior to medical school, Dr. Ryu had worked as a VLSI microprocessor designer. During residency, he also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Electrical Engineering and Neurosciences at Stanford University developing brain-controlled neural prosthetic systems. He is still active in this research at Stanford.

Dr. Ryu joined PAMF in 2009, after being an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University, acting as one of the experts treating spine disorders from skull to sacrum. His professional interests (listed below) include minimally invasive brain and spine surgery, in which he is actively involved teaching surgeons, nationally and internationally. He is also interested in stereotactic radiosurgery and, in 2001, published the first paper on robotic spinal stereotactic radiosurgery. Dr. Ryu also has a special interest in cervical spine disease and new technology applications for neurosurgery.

Dr. Ryu is married with two children. He enjoys reading, food and wine, and anything related to computing.

Professional Interests

Brain Surgery:

• Brain tumor (primary, metastatic)
  
• Neuro-oncology
  
• Brain vascular malformations
  
• Pituitary lesions
  
• Microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia
  
• Trauma

Spine Surgery:

• Minimally invasive (MIS) discectomy and decompression: cervical, thoracic, and lumbar
  
• Cervical artificial disc
  
• Cervical fusion: ACDF, posterior
  
• Thoracic fusion: anterior, lateral, posterior
  
• Lumbar fusion: ALIF, MIS-TLIF, lateral (XLIF/DLIF), posterior MIS
  
• Craniocervical decompression and fusion
  
• Cervical, thoracic, and lumbar corpectomy for tumor and trauma
  
• Lumbar degenerative deformity surgery
  
• X-STOP
  
• Kyphoplasty
  
• Vascular malformations of the spine (AVF, AVM)
  
• Tumors of the spine (primary, metastatic)

Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) for brain and spine lesions

Peripheral nerve tumors/lesions