Chester J. Koh, MD

My clinical area of expertise and interest is in minimally invasive surgery in children for their pediatric urologic conditions, especially with robotic surgery and single incision laparoscopic surgery, and I am the director of the Pediatric Robotic Surgery Program. We have shown that minimally invasive surgery in children has been associated with smaller incisions, shorter hospital stays, and decreased pain medication usage in comparison to open surgery in the field of pediatric urology for procedures such as pyeloplasty for ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) obstruction, nephrectomy (kidney removal), and ureteral reimplantation for vesicoureteral reflux. This often leads to faster recoveries for children, and allows their parents to minimize their time away from work. Robotic surgery can also be used for select genitourinary reconstructive procedures in pediatric urology as well. Our program serves as a pediatric robotic surgery research and training center that collaborates with the other institutions here in the Texas Medical Center. 

I collaborate with our Pediatric Urology Laboratory, which is supported in part by NIH funding, as my NIH-funded laboratory in the past investigated novel therapeutic pathways for bladder regeneration / inflammation and other non-cancer urologic conditions.

I also serve as the co-founder and co-PI of a FDA-supported pediatric medical device consortium (the Southern California Consortium for Technology and Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP)), a pediatric medical device consortium that is based in Los Angeles and which includes Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine, as well as the founder of the Texas Children’s Hospital / Baylor College of Medicine-based consortium, the Southwest Pediatric Device Consortium (swpdc.org). These consortia are dedicated to improving children's health by supporting the development of innovative pediatric medical devices through all of the necessary stages - concept formation, prototyping, preclinical, clinical, manufacturing, marketing, and commercialization. The need for these consortia arose from the slow pace of pediatric medical device development, which currently lags behind the development of adult devices by five to ten years. In addition, children differ from adults in terms of their size, growth, development, body chemistry, and disease propensity.

Education

Organizations

* Texas Children’s Hospital physicians’ licenses and credentials are reviewed prior to practicing at any of our facilities. Sections titled From the Doctor, Professional Organizations and Publications were provided by the physician’s office and were not verified by Texas Children’s Hospital.

Chung S, Kang DO, Yamzon J, Warburton D, and Koh CJ. Down-regulation of O-GlcNAc-mediated Glycosylation in Cyclophosphamide-induced Cystitis. Journal of Urology 183(1): 351-6, 2010. PMCID: PMC2840040, NIHMS [174567].

Behan JW, Kim SS, Dorey FJ, De Filippo RE, Chang AY, Hardy BE, and Koh CJ. Human Capital Gains Associated with Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Pyeloplasty in Children Compared to Open Pyeloplasty. Journal of Urology 186(4 Suppl):1663-7, 2011. PMID: 21862079.

Kim PH, Patil M, Kim SS, Dorey FJ, De Filippo RE, Chang AY, Hardy BE, Gill IS, Desai MM, and Koh CJ. Early Comparison of Nephrectomy Options in Children (Open, Transperitoneal Laparoscopic, Laparo-Endoscopic Single Site (LESS), and Robotic Surgery). BJU Int 109(6):910-5, 2012. PMID: 21883858.

Silay MS, Baek M, Koh CJ. Robotic-assisted Laparoscopic Extravesical Ureteral Reimplantation in Children: Top-Down Suturing Technique Without Stent Placement. Journal of Endourology 2015 Aug;29(8):864-6. PMID: 25674670.

Afsarlar CE, Ryan SL, Donel E, Baccam TH, Jones B, Chandwani B, Au J, Huang GO, Gonzales ET, Janzen N, Tu D, Seth A, Roth DR, and Koh CJ. Standardized Process to Improve Patient Flow From the Emergency Room (ER) to the Operating Room (OR) for Pediatric Patients with Testicular Torsion. Journal of Pediatric Urology 2016 May 15. pii: S1477-5131(16)30046-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jpurol.2016.04.019. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 27270069.

Silay MS, Spinoit AF, Undre S, Fiala V, Tandogdu Z, Garmanova T, Guttilla A, Sancaktutar AA, Haid B, Waldert M, Goyal A, Serefoglu EC, Baldassarre E, Manzoni G, Radford A, Subramaniam R, Cherian A, Hoebeke P, Jacobs M, Rocco B, Yuriy R, Zattoni F, Kocvara R, and Koh CJ. Global Minimally Invasive Pyeloplasty Study in Children: Results from the Pediatric Urology Expert Group of the EAU Young Academic Urologists Working Party. Journal of Pediatric Urology 2016 May 12. pii: S1477-5131(16)30031-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jpurol.2016.04.007. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 27346071.

Choi IS, Yu KK, Kim J, Guzman E, Weisenberger DJ, Oghamian S, Kim HJ, Lee KH, Carroll C, Trinh BN, Kim M, Houshdaran S, Laird PW, Jones PA, Warburton D, Liang G, and Koh CJ.  Alterations in the DNA Methylation Patterns of Calca, Timp3, Mmp2, and Igf2r Associated with Chronic Cystitis in a Cyclosphosphamide-induced Mouse Model.  Urology. 2013 Jul;82(1):253.e9-15. doi: 10.1016/j.urology.2013.04.010. PMID: 23806407.

Sack B, Elizondo RA, Huang GO, Janzen N, Espinoza J, Sanz-Cortes M, Dietrich JE, Hakim J, Richardson E, Oden M, Hanks J, Haridas B, Hury JF, and Koh CJ.  Pediatric Medical Device Development by Surgeons via Capstone Engineering Design Programs.  J Pediatr Surg. 2018 Mar; 53(3):493-498. doi: 10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2017.01.067. Epub 2017 Feb 6.  PMID: 28196661