Yale team recognized by New England Neurosurgical Society

Nanthiya Sujijantarat, MD; Brianna Theriault, MD, PhD; and Angelica Alvarez Reyes, MD, have all been recognized for their work by the New England Neurosurgical Society (NENS) and will be featured presenters at the 2026 annual meeting. Sujijantarat is one of four “rising” neurosurgeons in New England, identified by NENS’ executive board as an academic neurosurgeon with a promising career ahead. Theriault and Alvarez Reyes, rising PGY7 and PGY4 neurosurgery residents respectively, were selected by NENS’ Scientific Program Committee to present their abstracts.

The 2026 annual meeting holds special significance for the Yale contingent as it’s the first meeting overseen by NENS president Jennifer Moliterno, MD, professor of neurosurgery and chief of neurosurgical oncology, Yale School of Medicine. Moliterno is the first Yale neurosurgeon to serve in this role in the organization’s 70-year history.

“I am presenting my work on the fate of blunt cerebrovascular injury (BCVI) in patients with concurrent cervical spine injury undergoing operative intervention,” Sujijantarat said. “We know that BCVI can cause stroke and other problems. But in real life, the management is often not so simple because people don’t typically get BCVI from minor injuries. In many cases, BCVI presents with other injuries like cervical fractures.”

This is what brought her to the work highlighted by NENS, “The Fate of Blunt Cerebrovascular Injury after Cervical Spine Surgery.”

Sujijantarat explained that when patients present with BVCI and other injuries, clinicians have to think about when it would be safe for the patients to be on blood thinning medication. This may conflict with the medical team's goal to avoid bleeding in patients scheduled for surgery. Clinicians also need to consider that the cervical spine will be physically manipulated during cervical fixation for these fractures.

“My hypothesis is that BCVI has a different trajectory in patients who have concurrent cervical injury necessitating cervical spine surgery when compared to BCVI in the general population,” she explained. “I think they heal differently, and the way we manage them should take that into account.”

Theriault is presenting “Carbon Fiber Instrumentation in the Pediatric Spine,” which received the Brain Lab Award for Vision Beyond the Microscope and represents one of the top abstracts being presented at the meeting.

“Carbon fiber hardware has been increasingly adopted in adult spine oncology because it produces substantially less MRI artifact than traditional titanium hardware,” Theriault said. “That improved imaging fidelity allows for better postoperative visualization of neural structures, tumor beds, and potential recurrence.”

That superior image fidelity could be especially valuable in pediatric patients because many children require years, sometimes decades of radiographic surveillance. That is what spurred the question of whether pediatric patients would see a particular benefit from instrumentation hardware that better preserves postoperative image quality. “The ability to preserve image quality over the long term becomes an important factor when choosing instrumentation hardware,” she added.

“Dr. [Michael] DiLuna [program director, neurosurgery residency and chief of pediatric neurosurgery] had us place carbon fiber hardware in several pediatric patients,” she said. “These kids are among the first in the U.S. to receive carbon fiber, rather than titanium hardware.”

Observing the number of patients arriving at the emergency department wearing cervical collars raised a series of questions in Alvarez Reyes’ mind.

“It’s a difficult question of how you clear a cervical collar [c-collar] when patients are obtunded, out of it, or unconscious,” Alvarez Reyes said. “What do you do with patients who spend days in the ICU, unable to tolerate an MRI to get their collars cleard? There are a lot of algorithms that exist, but there isn't one that's really used across the board. That was the genesis of this project, trying to arrive at a team-based consensus as to what the best pathway forward is for each patient.”

Her NENS abstract, “Cervical Spine Clearance: The Importance of Consensus-Based Institutional Pathways in the Setting of Controversial Clinical Evidence,” attempts to solve the problem by bringing multiple services together to arrive at a consensus.

“In our case, it’s not just working with the neurosurgery team, but also bringing in the emergency department, the trauma service, and others,” she said. “Patients can experience complications if they’re on a unit for a long time and can’t get their collars cleard. They can develop sores or experience respiratory issues because they can't tolerate the collar. That’s why we want to arrive at a solution that works for everyone, especially the patient.”

Overseeing the first annual meeting as president, Moliterno said she’s incredibly proud of the 2026 Yale group, adding that the Department of Neurosurgery’s environment cultivates strong academic achievement.

“It's fantastic,” Moliterno said about this year’s presenters. “Over the years, Yale has had an increasingly larger presence at NENS, and I think that is wonderful and important. We are collectively a strong academic neurosurgery department in New England, with some of the most outstanding basic and clinical science. I am glad to see we are showcasing ourselves and our work amongst some of the best in the world. Several of our current and recent past residents have presented their abstracts and have similarly received awards. I am very proud of them, and this year, especially proud of Nan, Bri, and Angelica.”