EN
Prof. Dr med. habil. Rüdiger Gerlach (Prof. Dr. med. habil. Rüdiger Gerlach) is Medical Director and Chief Physician of the Department of Neurosurgery and head of the neuro-oncology centre at Helios Hospital Erfurt in Erfurt. Patients are referred to him with brain and skull base tumours, with aneurysms and vascular malformations, and with children who have malformations of the nervous system.
Where the doctor practises and what they do
Prof. Gerlach has worked in Erfurt since 2008. He first led the section for vascular, functional and paediatric neurosurgery, became Chief Physician of the department in 2013, took over the neuro-oncology centre in 2015 and has been Medical Director since February 2025. His main field is surgery for brain tumours, benign and malignant alike, including meningiomas and tumours of the skull base. Operations are performed with neuronavigation (computer guidance of the instruments based on MRI images) and with monitoring that checks the nerve pathways while the surgery is under way.
His second field is vascular neurosurgery: complex aneurysms, dural fistulas (abnormal connections between vessels in the covering of the brain), angiomas and cavernomas. Pituitary adenomas he removes endoscopically through the nose, without opening the skull. He also works in paediatric neurosurgery, in the correction of congenital malformations and in the treatment of hydrocephalus — a build-up of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. Minimally invasive spinal operations form a further part of the department’s work.
What they are known for
Rüdiger Gerlach studied medicine at the University of Leipzig and trained in neurosurgery in Leipzig and in Frankfurt am Main. There he became a senior physician in 2004, completed his habilitation with the teaching licence for neurosurgery in the same year, and was appointed professor in 2009. In 2006 he undertook a clinical fellowship at Duke University in North Carolina, and from 2019 to 2021 he was president of the German society for skull base surgery. He belongs to the German Society of Neurosurgery, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the International Society of Pituitary Surgeons and the German Cancer Society, and holds an additional qualification in special neurosurgical intensive care medicine. He contributed to the German guidelines on hormone-inactive pituitary adenomas and on malignant tumours of the paranasal sinuses.
How we arrange an appointment
AlenMed arranges consultations and treatment with Prof. Gerlach. Send us a request through our online form; we translate your medical reports into German, agree a date at Helios Hospital Erfurt, provide a medical interpreter for the consultation and the ward, and help with the visa, the airport transfer and accommodation. Payment is made directly to the hospital at its official tariffs.
This material is provided for information only and does not replace a doctor’s consultation. Whether treatment is possible and what it can achieve are determined after an in-person examination.