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About Dr Matthew Pitt
Personal Profile
Dr Matthew Pitt qualified from Cambridge University with clinical studies at the Westminster hospital. Before training in clinical neurophysiology, he had substantive posts that included being Resident Medical Officer at the National Heart hospital in London, a period in neurosurgery at the Walsgrave Hospital Coventry and neurology at Aberdeen University and Atkinson Morley Hospital London. He held a MRC fellowship for three years while at Aberdeen supervising the trial of Azathioprine in the treatment of multiple sclerosis with Aberdeen University contributing the largest cohort. During this time he wrote his MD thesis entitled “An investigation into non-compressive myelopathy”. This is an unusual presentation of multiple sclerosis, usually affecting patients after the age of 50 years. He was awarded his MD thesis by the University of Cambridge in 1989. Additionally he updated and streamlined the multiple sclerosis database set up in Aberdeen by previous colleagues. He was elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 1996.
His training in clinical neurophysiology was at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases and Great Ormond Street hospital for children. He was appointed Consultant in Clinical Neurophysiology at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in 1990 and remained there until his retirement in 2020.
On his appointment he was responsible for not only electromyography but also electroencephalography and spinal monitoring. For around 10 years he was the head of the department.
Electromyography was his primary interest and during his time at the hospital he saw the numbers of cases increase from from around 30 per month to nearly 100. The hospital became one of the foremost centres for paediatric electromyography internationally. His work attracted trainees from the UK and worldwide. He has over 100 publications including full papers as well as reviews, chapters, short reports and conference proceedings. He wrote the first book dedicated to paediatric EMG published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. He was honoured by the British Society of Clinical Neurophysiology by giving its Biannual Geoffrey Parr Lecture in 2021.
He was a regular attendee at international meetings both in Europe and worldwide. As a Francophone he was regularly invited to speak at French EMG and neurophysiological societies. He was responsible for the setting up of a Department of Paediatric Electromyography in Dhaka Bangladesh.
He founded with three other international colleagues the Biannual International Paediatric EMG, the only one dedicated to Paedatric EMG in the world, which celebrates its 30 year anniversary next year with the 15th Congress. In recognition of his contribution to the development of paediatric electromyography internationally he has May the honorary president of the newly formed Special Interest Group for Paediatric EMG of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology.
His particular interests included the investigation of myasthenic conditions in children and he pioneered the adaption of stimulated single fibre EMG to allow its use in children of any age. He is internationally recognised as the world expert on this technique. Additionally, he had interests in investigation of obstetric brachial plexus palsy and also difficulties in swallowing.
Children over around five years suffer many of the conditions that are seen in adults and their investigation has many similarities. It is only under this age that specialised skills and knowledge are needed for effective investigation. As well as becoming skilful in investigation of these patients whose investigation presents challenges not often seen in adult practise Dr Pitt continued to maintain and develop his skills in adults. Throughout his 35 years of experience, he regularly held clinics at other hospitals, whose patients were mostly adults and this has continued since retirement.
Clinical Interests
All aspects of the investigation of disease and muscle problems are of interest to Dr Pitt.
His particular interest is the investigation of Myasthenic conditions.
