Cardiothoracic Surgery

What is the general background information?

In the last decades our department developed research to the present level, developing to a structural embedding within the Erasmus MC. Our department closely cooperates with national and international partners. For preclinical and translational research we cooperate with partners with a proven track record in the relevant areas 

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Regularly scheduled research reports of the ongoing PhD projects

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

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. 

For postdoc researchers

Postdoc researches may react on public advertising of opportunities.