Robotic and Minimally Invasive Surgery

Dr. Allaf is Professor of Urology, Oncology, and Biomedical Engineering at the Brady Urological Institute and Director of Minimally Invasive and Robotic Urological Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  He joined the staff after receiving his undergraduate and medical degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and completing his residency and advanced training in Urology at Johns Hopkins, as well. 

As a urologic oncologist, his main clinical focus includes the treatment of kidney tumors and prostate cancer.  While expert in both open and minimally invasive surgery, he specializes in ROBOTIC approaches to these diseases and is amongst the busiest robotic surgeons in the world.  The following is a list of robotic procedures he performs on a regular basis:

1. Nerve-Sparing Radical Prostatectomy
2. Partial and Radical Nephrectomy
3. Pyeloplasty
4. Adrenalectomy
5. Retroperitoneal Lymph Node Dissection (for testicular cancer patients)

Dr. Allaf also runs a research laboratory aimed at decreasing the morbidity associated with the treatment of urologic cancers.  He oversees a large registry of patients who have small kidney tumors and elect for careful and active observation.  Additionally, given his background as a biomedical engineer, he is a leader in developing future technological advancements in the field of robotic and minimally invasive surgery.  An example of this is the use of real-time elastography imaging during robotic prostatectomy to regain tactile feedback during this delicate procedure.

Dr. Allaf has been the recipient of numerous academic awards and has been invited nationally and internationally to demonstrate robotic surgery and lecture on robotic prostatectomy and kidney surgery.  He has written and published numerous research articles, textbook chapters, patents and video presentations in the field of Laparoscopic and Robotic Urologic Surgery.

Dr. Allaf routinely performs surgery on international patients and has personally performed surgery abroad. His goal is to provide you with the best medical care possible while coordinating the care plan with your local physicians. Dr. Allaf prefers setting up an appointment by phone after receiving the relevant medical records. Based on this phone appointment a care plan will be formulated allowing you to plan your trip to Baltimore efficiently. For inquiries please call Dr. Allaf's office at +1 410-502-7710 or email him directly at mallaf@jhmi.edu.

 

Justin O. Benabdallah, M.D., is a urologist at Sibley Memorial Hospital, as well as an assistant professor of urology with the Brady Urological Institute and Department of Urology at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Dr. Benabdallah is board eligible in urology with the American Board of Urology.

Dr. Benabdallah’s uses minimally invasive and robotic surgery techniques in the treatment of prostate and kidney cancer and has expertise in endourology for the treatment of kidney stones. He also specializes in men’s health, including erectile dysfunction, male infertility, vasectomy and enlarged prostate. 

Dr. Benabdallah earned his medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in urology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Benabdallah also completed a fellowship in endourology and minimally invasive urology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, where he served as a clinical instructor in urology.

Dr. Benabdallah is a member of the American Urologic Society and the Endourology Society. 

Dr. Benabdallah earned the Dr. Anna Smither Award for Neurourology Research and the Housestaff Research Award from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Dr. Benabdallah has contributed to numerous publications and presentations on topics of urology. 

Trinity J. Bivalacqua, M.D., Ph.D., is the R. Christian B. Evensen Professor of Urology and Oncology and Director of Urologic Oncology at the James Buchanan Brady Urologic Institute .  He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and graduated from Tulane University with undergraduate, graduate and medical degrees. He joined the faculty after completing his General Surgery and Urology training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He also completed an American Urological Association (AUA) Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the AUA Care Foundation.

Dr. Bivalacqua has an active clinical practice in Urologic Oncology and Sexual Dysfunction. As a member of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Dr Bivalacqua participates in multidisciplinary approaches to the treatment of a variety of genitourinary cancers. He has a special interest in cancers of the prostate and bladder with an emphasis on organ sparing therapies, minimally invasive techniques (nerve-sparing robotic assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy and robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical cystectomy) and orthotopic bladder substitution (neobladder). Although he has a busy surgical practice, he maintains an active research portfolio in order to improve outcomes of cancer patients. A major focus of his research lab is development of pre-clinical models of urothelial carcinoma to test systemic and intravesical immunotherapies and nano-particular based chemotherapies. Also, he heads the tissue-engineering lab which focuses on regenerative approaches to enhance autonomic nerve function and development of tissue-engineered urinary tissue with the ultimate goal of production of a neo-urinary conduit and bladder.

Dr. Bivalacqua's basic, translational and clinical research is funded by peer-reviewed awards and he has recently been acknowledged for his accomplishments in research with several grants including a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Health (NIH), Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute, and the AUA "Rising Star" Award. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN) and a member of the AUA Leadership Program. 

Dr. Misop Han is professor of urology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Han is a board-certified urologist whose main clinical focus is in urological oncology with a special emphasis on prostate and kidney cancers. When meeting with a patient, Dr. Han carefully reviews the patient's individual situation to determine with the patient the best approach to treatment. 

Dr. Han specializes in:

1. Prostate Cancer
2. Robotic Prostatectomy
3. Robotic Nephrectomy
4. Nerve-sparing Prostatectomy
5. Laparoscopic Nephrectomy
6. Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH)
7. Kidney Cancer

Dr. Han received his undergraduate and medical degrees at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. After an internship in surgery and residencies in surgery and urology, also at Johns Hopkins, he worked as an Assistant Professor of Urology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and as a urologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. While there, he headed Northwestern University's clinical database for prostate cancer research. In 2006, he joined the Johns Hopkins faculty.

At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Han is actively involved in researching what happens to men following surgery for prostate cancer.  He has published extensively in these subjects. Click here for his publications.  Click here for the outcome of radical prostatectomy and prediction modeling (Han Tables). Dr. Han's research and clinical trials also involve urologic robotics for image-guided surgery.

Dr. Han has received international and national recognition for his research involving the outcomes of surgeries for patients with prostate cancer. He is a member of the American Urological Association and the American Medical Association, and is certified by the American Board of Urologists.

Dr. Brian Matlaga is a Professor of Urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and also serves as the Director of the Gerald and Helen Stephens Center for Stone Disease at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute.  Dr. Matlaga received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, and his Medical Degree and a Master of Public Health degree from Tulane University.  He then completed his internship in surgery and residency in urology at Wake Forest University; his subsequent fellowship at Indiana University was supported by an American Foundation for Urologic Disease Research Scholarship. 

Dr. Matlaga is an internationally recognized expert in the medical and surgical management of patients with urinary stone disease.  This expertise is built on his academic investigations of the pathophysiology and epidemiology of stone formation, as well as into the advancement of minimally invasive surgical techniques.  A frequent contributor to the medical press, Dr. Matlaga’s research has received both national and international awards; in 2014, he was the recipient of the Endourological Society’s Arthur D. Smith Endourology Lectureship, which was given in recognition of accomplishments in the first ten years of his career. 

Dr. Matlaga is an independently funded investigator, and presently is the Principal Investigator for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Urologic Diseases in America project.  Dr. Matlaga sits on numerous editorial boards as well as advisory committees and guidelines panels for the American Urological Association, the American Board of Urology, the Endourological Society, and the National Institutes of Health.  He recently served as Vice Chair of the American Urological Association’s Surgical Management of Stones Guidelines and has also served as Task Force Chair for the Examination Committee of the American Board of Urology. He presently serves on the Board of Directors for the Society of Academic Urologists as well as the Endourological Society. 

Dr. Matlaga works closely with Johns Hopkins Medicine International, the arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine that manages its global presence.  Dr. Matlaga is Chair of the Research Committee of Johns Hopkins Medicine International.  In addition, he is a Medical Director and oversees the educational, teaching, and research activities of Hospital Moinhos de Vento, Johns Hopkins’ affiliate in Brazil.  Dr. Matlaga also assists in the coordination of the enterprise-wide research program at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, a joint venture between Johns Hopkins Medicine and Saudi Aramco that is based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Alan W. Partin, M.D., Ph.D., is the author or co-author of more than 550 scientific articles, serves on numerous editorial boards and is editor-in-chief of Urology Case Reports and editor of the Campbell-Walsh urology text. He has been honored with many awards, including the Hopkins Young Investigators Award, the Pfizer Scholars in Urology Award in 1996, and the "Gold- Cystoscope" award in 2001. In 2004, Dr. Partin was named director of the Department of Urology at the Brady Urological Institute and urologist-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr. Partin is an expert in assessing prognosis and making predictions for men with prostate cancer. The creation of The Partin Tables, which can predict with 95 percent accuracy a man's likelihood of being cured by treatment, made his research famous. Dr. Partin's laboratories and clinical and surgical interests focus on developing and testing new and existing methods for predicting the aggressiveness of prostate cancers so that rational treatment decisions can be made by both patients and physicians. His laboratories have investigated many new "PSA-like" serum tests, many of which have subsequently become available for clinical utilization. He also has an academic and clinical interest in the basic science investigation of new, novel proteins which may help in detection and staging of prostate cancer.

Dr. Partin received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Mississippi where he was an Academic All-American football player. He received his medical degree and his Ph.D. in pharmacology and molecular sciences from Johns Hopkins University where he continued his post-doctoral training.

Dr. Christian P. Pavlovich is Professor of Urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Director of Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance Program and Fellowship Director of Urologic Oncology for the Brady Urological Institute.

Dr. Pavlovich treats cancer with an emphasis on minimizing morbidity and maximizing quality of life, while offering patients the latest treatment options and techniques.

His clinical focus is on prostate cancer, kidney cancer, and associated disorders, and on clinical trials regarding cancer detection and cancer immunotherapy. He is experienced in performing open, laparoscopic and other minimally invasive surgeries for the management of urologic tumors, including nerve-sparing and robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, laparoscopic and robotic nephrectomy, nephroureterectomy, and partial nephrectomy, and robotic radical cystectomy. In addition, he offers patients active surveillance and ablative options for their urinary malignancies including cryotherapy and prostate ablation.

He has been a National Institutes of Health- and Department of Defense-funded investigator whose research focuses on identifying early-detection methods for prostate and kidney cancer, including novel urinary biomarkers and imaging modalities for these diseases.

Dr. Pavlovich earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine. He completed a urology residency at New York Hospital and a National Cancer Institute fellowship in urologic oncology before joining the Hopkins faculty in 2001.

American Board of Urology-certified, Dr. Pavlovich has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and is on the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Urology International.

Dr. Pavlovich speaks English, French, Spanish, German, Croatian and Serbian.

 

 

Dr. Phillip Pierorazio is an Associate Professor of Urology and Oncology in the Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins University.  Dr. Pierorazio is originally from New York, received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC and his medical degree from Columbia University, College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City where he completed a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship in Urologic Oncology.

Dr. Pierorazio has expertise in all malignancies of the urinary tract and performs both open and minimally-invasive surgeries including laparoscopic and robotic surgeries of the kidney, adrenal, bladder, prostate and retroperitoneal lymph node dissection for testicular cancer. He has a special interest in kidney cancer, including partial nephrectomy for early-stage disease, and high-risk surgeries for patients with advanced cancers. 

His research interests parallel his clinical practice, including high-risk prostate and urothelial cancer. He has a special interest in testicular and kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma), studying both advanced and early-stage disease. He runs the Delayed Intervention and Surveillance for Small Renal Masses (DISSRM) Registry - one of the largest active surveillance registries for patients with small kidney tumors. He sits on both the AUA and National Comprehensive Cancer Network  (NCCN) Guidelines Committees for Kidney Cancer.

He is also the Director of the Division of Testicular Cancer, a member of the NCCN Guidelines committee, and works with a number of testicular cancer advocacy groups around the country. He runs the testicular cancer "Go-Team" and coordinates the departments research efforts in testicular cancer.

Dr. Pierorazio is the recipient of a number of academic awards including the American Urologic Association Essay Contest, NCCN Young Investigator Award, and has presented his research at a number of national and international meetings. He has written and published numerous research articles, textbook chapters, and video presentations in the field Urologic Oncology.

Armine Smith, M.D., is the director of urologic oncology at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital, and an assistant clinical professor of urology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Smith is board certified in urology by the American Board of Urology.

Listen to Dr. Smith’s Cancer Matters podcast episode to learn more about her work.

Dr. Smith has an expertise in advanced urologic surgery, including open and minimally invasive approaches to oncologic diseases and the latest robotic technologies. She has been selected as a Washington, DC top urologist.She specializes in many urologic malignancies, including bladder cancer, kidney cancer, penile cancer, prostate cancer and urethral cancer. In bladder cancer surgery she specializes in bladder preservation, complex urinary diversions, including continent orthotopic neobladder and continent catheterizable Indiana pouch techniques. In kidney cancer, her expertise focuses on partial nephrectomy, with the goal of oncologically-sound maximum nephron-sparing surgery.

Dr. Smith earned her medical degree from the University of California in San Francisco. She completed a residency in urology at the Cleveland Clinic, followed by a fellowship in urologic oncology at the National Cancer Institute, where she focused on development of personalized targeted therapies for bladder cancer.

Dr. Smith previously served as a clinical instructor in surgery at Lerner College of Medicine and currently works as an assistant clinical professor of urology at George Washington University School of Medicine. She is also a clinical associate of the National Cancer Institute/Urologic Oncology Branch, and is working to earn her Master of Business Administration degree from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School.

Dr. Smith is a member of the Society of Urologic Oncology, American Association of Cancer Research and American Urological Association.

Dr. Smith has earned the Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award and the Cleveland Clinic Housestaff Association Award, in addition to the John Quale Fellowship Travel Award and grants from the Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute, the Cleveland Clinic Research Program Committee and the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute. She has contributed to various research, publications and presentations on topics of urology.Dr. Smith has made TV appearances, lectured domestically and internationally, and authored chapters on urothelial and kidney cancer. Her current research focuses on elucidating risk factors for development of bladder cancer and overcoming resistance to conventional therapy regimens, including development of personalized targeted therapies. She is a member of Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute and a co-director of Women's Bladder Cancer Program at Sibley Memorial Hospital.

Dr. Wright is Director of Neurourology and Chief of Urology at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He completed a fellowship in female urology, reconstructive urology and urodynamics. His clinical and research interests are in male and female urinary incontinence, complex voiding dysfunction and pelvic genitourinary reconstructive surgery.

Expertise

• Incontinence
• Lower Urinary Tract Reconstruction
• Pelvic Floor Disorders
• Pelvic Organ Prolapse
• Urethral Stricture
• Urogynecology
• Urology