Nihal Gurusinghe

Nihal Gurusinghe
MBE
Born
Nihal Trevor Gurusinghe
EducationUniversity of Ceylon (MBBS)
OccupationNeurosurgeon
Years active1970–present
Medical career
InstitutionsLancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Nihal Trevor Gurusinghe MBE is a British neurosurgeon who has served as a consultant neurosurgeon at the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is an honorary professor at the University of Central Lancashire and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours.

Academic and professional roles

Gurusinghe qualified as a doctor in Sri Lanka and moved to the United Kingdom in December 1975 to pursue a career in neurosurgery.[1][2] He began working in the National Health Service that month. After holding several positions and undertaking neurosurgical training at hospitals in London, he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at the Royal Preston Hospital, part of the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, in October 1985.[3] He thereby became the first Sri Lankan to be appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon in the United Kingdom.[1][2] He has continued to serve at the Trust and completed 50 years of NHS service in December 2025.

At the Trust, Gurusinghe has held several leadership roles, including chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery from 2000 to 2009 and clinical lead for the neurovascular service.[4] He was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Central Lancashire in May 2016 and has supervised doctoral research and contributed to collaborative research programmes in brain cancer.[5][1]

Gurusinghe has served as an examiner for the FRCS (Neurosurgery) examinations, including roles with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and international conjoint examinations with surgical colleges in Hong Kong and Singapore.[1][6] He has also been a member of the Specialty Surgical Board (Neurosurgery) of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.[1][7]

Gurusinghe was elected honorary secretary of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS) in 2000 and served until 2005.[7] He was elected to its Council in 2006 and has continued to serve on its Executive Council.[7] He has served on the Council in elected and ex officio capacities for more than 20 years and has also been a member of the society's Academic Committee.[7][6] In 2011, he became the SBNS coordinator for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), advising on neurosurgical guidelines and interventional procedures.[7][8]

In November 2009, Gurusinghe travelled to Afghanistan at the request of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence to review and report on the neurosurgical services available to NATO forces. The visit involved military transport, preparatory training and the use of full body armour.

Sydney Driscoll Neuroscience Foundation

Gurusinghe is the founder of the Sydney Driscoll Neuroscience Foundation, a registered charity established in 1989 to support neuroscience education and research at Preston. He served as Chairman from 1989 to 2006 and has continued as a trustee.[9]

Since 2018, Gurusinghe has chaired the Oversight Group governing the brain-cancer research collaboration between the foundation and the University of Lancashire.[1][5]

Research

Gurusinghe's research has focused primarily on clinical neurosurgery, with particular emphasis on neurovascular disorders,[10] spinal tumours,[11] intracranial aneurysms,[12] cavernous malformations,[13][14] and meningiomas.[15][16]

His work has included studies on aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, including radiological grading and the prediction of cerebral vasospasm,[10] as well as the development of regional neurovascular services in the North West of England.[17] He has published on intracranial and spinal tumours, including long-term follow-up studies of benign tumours[18] and investigations into meningioma growth and recurrence.[19][20]

Gurusinghe has contributed to research on cavernous malformations and vascular anomalies, including case series and systematic reviews.[13][14][21] He has also co-authored work on small unruptured intracranial aneurysms, including meta-analyses examining radiological surveillance strategies.[12]

In collaboration with researchers at the University of Central Lancashire, he has participated in translational research projects investigating spectroscopic and computational methods for the characterisation and grading of meningioma tumours, including the use of Raman microspectroscopy and attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR).[15][16][22]

He has served as a local principal investigator for national multicentre clinical trials, including the Trial of Dexamethasone for Chronic Subdural Haematoma, the results of which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2020,[23][24] and the CARE Cavernoma Trial UK.[25]

Honours

Gurusinghe is a member of the British Medical Association, the Neurosurgical Association of Sri Lanka[26] and the Society of British Neurological Surgeons.[7] He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.[27] In 2023, he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the King's New Year Honours.[28] In 2024, he received the Society of British Neurological Surgeons Medal.[29]

In February 2025, Gurusinghe received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Neurosurgeons Association of Sri Lanka.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Professor Nihal Gurusinghe Reflects on Receiving an MBE". Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. 13 April 2023.
  2. 1 2 "Prof. Nihal Gurusinghe M.B.E." (PDF). BIDA Journal. 30 (1): 25. February 2024.
  3. ↑ "Neurosurgery". Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
  4. ↑ "Penwortham consultant neurosurgeon given surprise tour of Parliament by Katherine Fletcher MP". Lancashire Evening Post. 21 November 2023.
  5. 1 2 "Trustees". Sydney Driscoll Neuroscience Foundation. 18 April 2023.
  6. 1 2 "About the editors". Cambridge Core. Cambridge University Press.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Council". Society of British Neurological Surgeons.
  8. ↑ "Committee membership list – Venous thromboembolism guideline committee". National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. 7 December 2017.
  9. ↑ "Barrow mum's life saved after routine eye-test discovered huge brain tumour". The Mail. 3 October 2017.
  10. 1 2 Gurusinghe, N. T.; Richardson, A. E. (April 1984). "The value of computerized tomography in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. The concept of the CT score". Journal of Neurosurgery. 60 (4): 763–770. doi:10.3171/jns.1984.60.4.0763. PMID 6707745.
  11. ↑ Gurusinghe, N. T. (1997). "Spinal Tumours". In Critchley, Edmund; Eisen, Andrew; Swash, Michael (eds.). Spinal Cord Disease: Basic Science, Diagnosis and Management. London: Springer. pp. 501–544. doi:10.1007/978-1-4471-0569-5_30. ISBN 978-1-85233-121-4.
  12. 1 2 Lee, Keng Siang; Zhang, John J. Y.; Alalade, Andrew Folusho; Vine, Roanna; Lanzino, Giuseppe; Park, Nicholas; Roberts, Gareth; Gurusinghe, Nihal T. (2021). "Radiological surveillance of small unruptured intracranial aneurysms: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression of 8428 aneurysms". Neurosurgical Review. 44 (4): 2013–2023. doi:10.1007/s10143-020-01420-1. PMID 33094423.
  13. 1 2 Mostofi, Abteen; Gurusinghe, Nihal T. (2020). "Multiple cerebral cavernous malformations in association with a Dubowitz-like syndrome". Journal of Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgery. 22 (1): 15–19. doi:10.7461/jcen.2020.22.1.15. PMC 7307612. PMID 32596139.
  14. 1 2 McLean, Ailsa; Alalade, Andrew Folusho; Golash, Aprajay; Gurusinghe, Nihal (2020). "De Novo Cavernoma Formation in a Patient With Cowden Syndrome and Lhermitte-Duclos Disease". World Neurosurgery. 143: 308–314. doi:10.1016/j.wneu.2020.07.221. PMID 32777405.
  15. 1 2 Morais, Camilo L. M.; Lilo, Taha; Ashton, Katherine M.; Davis, Charles; Dawson, Timothy P.; Gurusinghe, Nihal; Martin, Francis L. (2019). "Determination of meningioma brain tumour grades using Raman microspectroscopy imaging". Analyst. 144 (23): 7024–7031. Bibcode:2019Ana...144.7024M. doi:10.1039/C9AN01551E. PMID 31650137.
  16. 1 2 Lilo, Taha; Morais, Camilo L. M.; Ashton, Katherine M.; Pardilho, Ana; Davis, Charles; Dawson, Timothy P.; Gurusinghe, Nihal; Martin, Francis L. (2020). "Spectrochemical differentiation of meningioma tumours based on attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy". Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. 412 (5): 1077–1086. doi:10.1007/s00216-019-02332-w. PMC 7007428. PMID 31865413.
  17. ↑ Ray, A.; Ansar, M. N.; Bhatti, M. I.; Patankar, T.; Phadke, R.; Roberts, G. A.; Gurusinghe, N. T. (2007). "Establishing a new neurovascular service for the treatment of aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: experience of the first 4 months". British Journal of Neurosurgery. 21 (1): 50. doi:10.1080/02688690701253976.
  18. ↑ Kumarasinghe, N.; Gurusinghe, N. T. (2012). "P35: Follow-up of benign intracranial and spinal tumours – 11-year series". British Journal of Neurosurgery. 26 (4). doi:10.3109/02688697.2012.670011.
  19. ↑ Prabhu, S. S.; Sharma, R. R.; Gurusinghe, N. T.; Parekh, H. C. (1994). "Is meningioma growth associated with hormonal replacement using sex steroids?". Lancaster and Westmorland Medical Journal. 2: 26–27.
  20. ↑ Lilo, Taha; Morais, Camilo L. M.; Ashton, Katherine M.; Pardilho, Ana; Davis, Charles; Gurusinghe, Nihal; Martin, Francis L. (2019). "Predicting meningioma recurrence using spectrochemical analysis of tissues and subsequent predictive computational algorithms". Neuro-Oncology. 21 (Supplement 4): iv5. doi:10.1093/neuonc/noz167.020. PMC 6789979.
  21. ↑ Clayton, Bethan L.; Rata, Adrian; Alalade, Andrew F.; Gurusinghe, Nihal (13 October 2020). "Intracranial Dural Arteriovenous Fistula Presenting With Bulbar and Myelopathic Features: Case Report and Literature Review". Cureus. 12 (10) e10934. doi:10.7759/cureus.10934. PMC 7557726. PMID 33072441.
  22. ↑ Lilo, Taha Luay (2023). Predicting Meningioma Recurrence Using Spectrochemical Analysis of Tissues and Subsequent Predictive Computational Algorithms (PhD thesis). University of Central Lancashire. doi:10.17030/uclan.thesis.00047977.
  23. ↑ Hutchinson, Peter J.; Edlmann, Eddie; Bulters, Diederik; Zolnourian, Ali; et al. (31 December 2020). "Trial of Dexamethasone for Chronic Subdural Hematoma". The New England Journal of Medicine. 383 (27): 2616–2627. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2020473. PMID 33326713.
  24. ↑ "Common drug for build-up of blood following head injury worse than placebo, study finds". University of Cambridge. 16 December 2020.
  25. ↑ Loan, James J. M.; Eriksson, Madeleine; Kinsella, Elaine; Lewis, Katherine; et al. (2023). "Feasibility of comparing medical management and surgery with neurosurgery or stereotactic radiosurgery with medical management alone in people with symptomatic brain cavernoma – protocol for the Cavernomas: A Randomised Effectiveness (CARE) pilot trial". BMJ Open. 13 (8) e075187. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2023-075187. PMC 10414059. PMID 37558454.
  26. ↑ "Members". Neurosurgeons Association of Sri Lanka. 22 October 2023.
  27. ↑ "Professor Nihal Gurusinghe Reflects on Receiving an MBE". RCSEd.
  28. ↑ "New Year Honours List 2023 (CSV)". GOV.UK. Cabinet Office. 30 December 2022.
  29. ↑ "History". Society of British Neurological Surgeons.
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