Phone: (415) 353-2529
Address: 505 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco CA 94143
Number of Outpatient CCM appointments in 2024: ~150
Number of CCM surgeries in 2024: ~60
Number of CCM research publications since 2013: 48
We see familial and sporadic cases at UCSF for evaluation and management primarily through our Vascular Neurosurgery and Vascular Neurology Specialty Clinics. We also have Pediatric Neurology and Neurosurgery providers as well as specialists in Genetics, Epilepsy, and Headache to provide comprehensive care to our patients and their families. Patients may be seen at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
Faculty
Research Program Director: Dr. Helen Kim
Medical Co-Director: Dr. Nerissa Ko
Surgical Co-Director: Dr. Ethan Winkler
Nurse Coordinator: Sharon Hoang, RN
Epileptologist: Dr. Tina Shih
Geneticist: Dr. Joseph Shieh
Neuroradiologist: Dr. Steven Hetts
Pediatric Neurosurgery: Dr. Nalin Gupta
Pediatric Neurology: Dr. Heather Fullerton
Pediatric Neurology: Dr. Christine Fox
UCSF Cavernous Malformation Program
Second Opinion Program
While UCSF does not have a designated second opinion clinic, they often see CCM patients for second opinion consultation and welcome patients and families to call our Referral Center at (888) 689-UCSF.
Summary of UC San Francisco Research Program
At UCSF, we have an active clinical and translational research program in cerebrovascular malformations funded by NIH grants to Dr. Helen Kim through the UCSF Center for Cerebrovascular Research (CCR). Three of these grants are focused on CCM, characterizing rates of clinical outcomes and identifying factors associated with disease severity and progression in patients with CCM. Dr. Kim was the lead investigator on the Brain Vascular Malformation Consortium CCM study, which has followed familial CCM patients for up to 15 years to better understand the natural history, clinical variability, and factors that modify outcomes in patients with CCM. This information is important for future targeted drug clinical trials that will ultimately benefit patients. Early work has identified several important genetic modifiers of hemorrhage risk, quantified hemorrhage rates in familial CCM, expanded the clinical phenotype beyond the brain, and validated the importance of several animal model findings, including the relevance of important signaling pathways on CCM lesion burden in humans. She has also collaborated with other investigators across the country to help identify and validate blood tests that can predict CCM lesion activity or identify lesions that would best respond to specific therapies. In collaboration with vascular neurosurgery (Ethan Winkler, MD, PhD), we also have established an active biorepository for banking surgically resected CCM lesions for future functional studies. In collaboration with vascular neurology (Nerissa Ko, MD, MS), we are interested in understanding the impact of CCM disease symptoms on patient-reported quality of life and investigating alternative outcomes for clinical trials.
Visitor Guides
To help make your visit to UCSF as comfortable as possible please read through the updated visitors guide for adult patients and pediatric patients.
Overnight Accommodations
For information about hotels, motels and short-term apartment rentals, please visit our Campus Life Services website.
Please make your lodging arrangements as far in advance as possible because San Francisco hotels tend to be busy.
See the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital website for information about accommodations for the parents and family members of pediatric patients.
Updated 05.6.2025
