Sheila Riazi, MSc, MD, FRCPC

My interests and key research foci are: (1) regional anesthesia and (2) malignant hyperthermia.
  • Regional Anesthesia:
    Regional anesthesia as an emerging type of anesthesia, is becoming more popular, with less morbidity, and easy tolerance by patients. My interest is specifically in block-related nerve injury, anesthetic-induced mitochondrial dysfunction.

    Our group has validated the association between the cross sectional area of the peripheral nerves as assessed by preoperative ultrasound and peripheral neuropathy in diabetic patients, which can be utilized before performance of regional anesthesia as a likelihood of block-related injury.
     
  • Malignant Hyperthermia:
    In my leadership role as Director of the Malignant Hyperthermia Investigation Unit at the Toronto General Hospital, the only unit of its kind in Canada, I have focused my efforts on malignant hyperthermia (MH) from clinical, research and educational perspectives. MH is a very rare disease and not many physicians or trainees encounter it during the course of their clinical practice or medical training. Our MH laboratory/clinic is a combined diagnostic and research laboratory for performing contracture testing for biopsies and assessment, and for providing genetic counselling and the testing of at-risk individuals. With access to one of the largest repositories of MH patients in the world, our unit is has a unique opportunity to conduct research in MH, as well as collaborate with various scientists.

    Our MH-related projects include, but are not limited to:
    • Epidemiologic characteristics of MH susceptible patients, as well as MH reaction.
    • MH/CCD patients RYR1 genotyping and identification of other genes important to MH through utilization of technologies like next generation sequencing (NGS) and whole exome sequencing (WES).
    • Investigation of bioenergetics and mitochondrial function in MH patients with, and without, MSK symptoms using MR-spectroscopy technology.
    • Studying calcium movement and metabolomics profiling in MH patients to explore the phenotypic differences among MH susceptible patients.

For a list of Dr. Riazi's publications, please visit PubMed, Scopus or ORCID.


Staff Anesthesiologist, Toronto Western Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesia, University of Toronto