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Department

Cardiothoracic Surgery

The research initiatives at the Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgey aim to improve prognostication, clinical outcomes and decision-making in cardio-thoracic interventions. We do this by combining translational research with the development and application of innovative statistical methods and clinical decision-making applications for patients with congenital heart disease, heart failure & structural heart disease, thoracic aortic disease, and pulmonary diseases. Close collaboration with (inter)national partners and patient representatives is an important factor in our success.

About our Department

Our research

What is the overall aim?

Our research aims at prognostication, clinical outcome and optimizing of decision making in cardiothoracic treatment options.

What are the focus areas of our research?

Within the aim of our research 4 areas of interest have developed innovative statistical methods and clinical decision making in optimizing patient-specific therapy choice and timing of treatment. The focus areas are 1. congenital heart disease, 2. heart failure and structural heart disease (specifically 2.1 heart valve disease, 2.2 heart failure and 2.3 development, (patho)physiology and morphology of the heart), 3. aortic pathology and 4. pulmonary disease.

Principal Investigators

  • Prof. Dr. Jolanda Kluin (Head of the department) 
  • Prof. Dr. Hanneke Takkenberg
  • Dr. Yannick Taverne

Research lines

Projects

  1. Congenital heart disease. This project concerns research in children as well as adults
  2. Heart failure and structural heart disease
    2.1 Heart valve disease. PI prof. dr. Ad Bogers, dr. Frans Oei, dr. Mostafa Mokhles. Both right and left ventricular outflow tract are studies. Clinical studies of mitral valve disease. Gender differences are an important topic. 
    2.2 Heart failure. PI prof.dr. Ad Bogers, dr. Rahat Muslem. Research in both children as well as adults in heart transplantation and assist devices.
    2.3 Development, (patho)physiology and morphology of the heart. PI dr. Yannick Taverne. Translational research into structural myocardial disease of overall electrophysiological and functional aspects of the heart.
  3. Aortic pathology. PI dr. Jos Bekkers. Our research is focused at clinical aneurysmal disease, including gender differences. 
  4. Pulmonary disease. PI dr, Edris Mahtab.This project has a focus on one hand on lung transplantation including ex-vivo lung perfusion to preserve more donor lungs and on the other hand on outcome and shared decision making in malignant pulmonary disease and mesothelioma.

Within the aim of our research 4 areas of interest we have developed a combination with innovative statistical methods and clinical decision making in optimizing patient-specific therapy choice and timing of treatment. PI prof.dr. Hanneke Takkenberg, dr. Mostafa Mokhles

Publications

We are involved in national and international scientific congresses (organization , invited speeches). We produce scientific output with high impact factors for our field and are involved in producing international guidelines in our profession.
The scientific production of our staff can for example be found on Pubmed and Researchgate.

Collaborations

We closely collaborate with the departments in of Biostatistics, Pediatric Cardiology, Cardiology (in particular Congenital Cardiology , Electrophysiology), Pulmonology, Anatomy, Skillslab . 

We participate in 12 ACE’s within the Erasmus MC (Congenital heart disease, Pediatric chest disease, Minimally invasive treatment valvular heart disease, Cardiocirculatory failure, Ischemic heart disease, Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, Atrial fibrillation, Gesture, Aortic aneurysm, Thoracic oncology, Interstitial lung disease and sarcoidosis, Pulmonary hypertension;).

Nationally we  cooperate actually with Congenital Cardiology Radboud Nijmegen, Cardiothoracic Surgery AMC, TU Eindhoven, LUMC, MUMC UMCU, with patient associations Harteraad, PAH, with professional associations NVT, NVVC, with Veterinary healthcare Utrecht (via Blijdorp), with TU Delft.

Internationally we cooperate actually in the AVIATOR network, the Ross network, with Harefield UK, Cleveland Clinic USA, UCL and Royal Brompton UK,  Columbia NY USA, Providence Health System USA, Department of Biochemistry and Bioengineering, cardiology-electrophysiology, UCLA, USA, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA, Department of Planetary Sciences, University of California, Riverside, USA, Department of pediatric cardiology, Harvard Medical, Boston USA.

News, events and awards

Our news

The Dekkergrant 2019 from the Dutch Heart Foundation was awarded for a PhD in our department, closely cooperating with Electrophysiology.

Events

Regularly scheduled research reports of the ongoing PhD projects

Awards and grants

NWO VENI, China Scholarship Council, Stichting Hartedroom, CVON 1Valve, CVON BAV, ZonMW Size matters, SKMS.

Education

BSc & MSc students

For bachelor students

Bachelor students can contact our PI’s for possible opportunities. 

For master students

Master students can contact our PI’s for possible opportunities. Several successful projects were completed. Some projects resulted in a PhD program. 

Postdoc Researchers

For postdoc researchers

Postdoc researches may react on public advertising of opportunities.