Dr. Brian W. Hanak, Neurosurgery

Dr. Brian Hanak is a board-certified pediatric neurosurgeon at CHOC in Orange County, California. As an expert in pediatric neurosurgery, Dr. Hanak cares for babies, kids, and teens with a wide variety of neurologic conditions. He performs a full range of neurosurgical procedures including but not limited to: brain/spine tumor surgery, brain/spine vascular malformation surgery, management of congenital spine malformations including spina bifida, revascularization procedures for Moyamoya disease/syndrome, procedures for hydrocephalus management including neuro-endoscopic procedures when appropriate, craniosynostosis surgery, neurosurgical interventions to manage brain/spine trauma, and surgical interventions for medically intractable epilepsy.

Dr. Hanak serves as the neurosurgical consultant for CHOC’s Multidisciplinary Spina Bifida Clinic as well as CHOC’s Multidisciplinary Neurovascular Clinic.  He frequently serves as the neurosurgical consultant for CHOC’s Fetal Care Center of Southern California to provide prenatal counseling to families when congenital brain/spine abnormalities are diagnosed in utero.  Dr. Hanak is also a member of the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Pediatric Neurosurgery Executive Committee (primary pediatric neurosurgery society in the US) given his role as co-chair of the Industry Relations Committee.

Dr. Hanak has diverse research interests, but he primarily focuses on developing strategies to mitigate the innate immune response mounted to implanted devices placed in the brain and spine, the pathophysiology of acquired hydrocephalus, and developing less invasive/destructive neurosurgical approaches to address pediatric pathologies.  Dr. Hanak’s laboratory-based research is largely driven by a desire to develop more failure resistant devices to manage hydrocephalus as, currently, the commercially available cerebrospinal fluid shunts placed by neurosurgeons worldwide are the most failure prone life sustaining implantable device in modern medicine.  In the clinical setting Dr. Hanak has published manuscripts detailing innovative surgical techniques he has developed to address pathology with less morbidity. Recent publications detailing the management of a high cervical spine bone tumor with a single injection of doxycycline foam (rather than pursuing a major surgery which would require spine fusion) and the management of a patient with achondroplasia and debilitating pain from pinched nerve roots in the low back using a novel surgical technique that eliminated the need to disrupt spine stabilizing ligaments serve as examples of his passion for developing novel surgical strategies to improve patient outcomes.

Locations

CHOC Specialists, Neurosurgery
505 S. Main Street, Suite 300
Orange, CA 92868
office: 714-509-7070
fax: 714-509-7074

Education

• Medical School
  Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
• Neurological Surgery Residency
  University of Washington, Seattle, WA
• Pediatric Neurosurgery Fellowship
  The Hospital for Sick Children (AKA: SickKids), Toronto, Canada

Professional Organizations

• American Association of Neurological Surgeons
• Congress of Neurological Surgeons

Honors and Awards

• Hydrocephalus Association Award (2015)
• AANS/CNS Joint Section on Pediatric Neurosurgery Executive Committee

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Jison G, Ramos N, Tran CT, Milo S, Shahriari A, Sato S, Le M, Sabahat S, Torres E, Padilla A, Lee S, Latini A, Castañeyra-Ruiz L, Muhonen M, Hanak BW. A stereotactic injection method to establish a clinically relevant germinal matrix hemorrhage murine model. J Neurosci Methods. 2026 Jul;431:110741. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2026.110741. Epub 2026 Mar 14. PMID: 41833701.

Bandhlish A, White-Dzuro GA, Barkley A, Hanak B, Latimer CS, Cecchini MM, Gonzalez-Cuyar L, Ferreira M. Erdheim-Chester Disease Presenting as a Suprasellar Mass. Cureus. 2026 May;18(5): e109622. doi:10.7759/cureus.109622 (PMID pending)

Castañeyra-Ruiz L, González-Marrero I, García-Abad LH, Gonzalez-Arnay E, Camacho M, Carmona-Calero EM, Lee S, Tran CTQ, Hanak BW, Muhonen M, Castañeyra-Perdomo A. Aquaporin-4 in glioblastoma: a nexus of glymphatic dysfunction, edema, immune evasion, and treatment resistance. Front Cell Neurosci. 2025 Nov; 19:168549. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2025.1685491. PMID: 41324079

Castañeyra-Ruiz L, Hanak BW, Sato S, Le M, Muhonen M. Reconsidering dimethyl sulfoxide in endovascular embolization: A potential toxic-dependent contributor to hydrocephalus? Interv Neuroradiol. 2025 Sep 26:15910199251380379. doi: 10.1177/15910199251380379. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41004662

Davis AL, Tessaro M, Schuh S, Malhotra AK, Sumaida M, Gauthey M, Zahid O, Breitbart S, Branson HM, Laughlin S, Hanak BW, Kulkarni AV. Change in optic nerve sheath diameter and cerebral ventricular shunt failure in children. JAMA Netw Open. 2025 May;8(5):e2511009. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.11009. PMID: 40377937

Lee S, Castañeyra-Ruiz L, Sato S, Jison G, Hanak B, Ledbetter J, Shahriari A, Tran C T-Q, Le M, Muhonen M. 3D-printed microfluidic device for cerebrospinal fluid diversion: Design, characterization, and in vitro evaluation of an alternative shunting device. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical. 425 (2025) 136961 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2024.136961)

Feng M, Vacaru A, Thimmappa V, Hanak B. Drainage of middle cranial fossa epidural abscess through mastoidectomy: Our experience and review of the literature. Surg Neurol Int. 2024 Oct;15:389. PMID: 39524586

Edelbach B, Elbadry RG, Deisch J, Hanak BW. Symptomatic multi-nodular fourth ventricular choroid plexus papillary fibrosis in the context of Chiari II malformation: Case report and literature review. Pediatr Neurosurg. 2024;59(5-6):193-201. doi: 10.1159/000541699. Epub 2024 Oct 24. PMID: 39447545.

Bui NE, Savla P, Galvis AE, Hanak BW. Symptomatic central nervous system tuberculosis and human herpesvirus-6 coinfection with associated hydrocephalus managed with endoscopic third ventriculostomy: A case report and review of human herpesvirus-6 neuropathology. Surg Neurol Int. 2024 Aug;15:287. PMID: 39246759

Wappler-Guzzetta EA, Hanak BW, Bannout F, Harder SL, Deisch JK. Neuropathologic findings in a patient with Parry-Romberg syndrome: active cerebral vasculitis and brain injury. Journal of Rare Diseases. 2024 Jan;3:3. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s44162-024-00027-0)