Specialization
Focus of research
I am a congenital cardiothoracic surgeon working within the CAHAL (Centrum voor Aangeboren Hartafwijkingen Amsterdam Leiden) organization since 2002. Within the field of congenital cardiothoracic surgery I am specialized in valve repair, Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) and surgery for patients (children and adults) with connective tissue disease.
My fisrt line of research concerns aortic root surgery and surgery for patients with connective tissue disease. Since 2003 we have the largest program in the Netherlands for Valve Sparing Root Replacement (results in adults and children were published). The crown on this program was the introduction of a innovative treatement for aneurysmatic aortic disease: PEARS (Personalized External Aortic Root Support) surgery, which was introduced in The Netherlands, when we treated the fisrt patient with PEARS in January 2018. Now, over 40 children and young adults have been treated the Netherlands with PEARS. A publication of the first Dutch cohort of PEARS will follow soon. In february 2021 we applied for the subsidy Veelbelovende Zorg of ZonMw: with this subsidy a research line will start for a period of three years, after which the PEARS will be admitted to the basispakket zorg.
The second line of research follows from an invention I have made on a new postoperative wounddrainage system that will make open heart surgery safer. The method is called Continuous Posoperative Pericardial Flushing (CPPF) and two RCT's with the method have been completed and published. At the same time a spinnoff startup from AMC was founded (in 2015) with the purpose to develop and produce the medical device that I have invented, of which the patent was granted by the European Patent office. My current fundings are related to this project. The FLUID trial, a national multicenter randomized clinical trial is about to start any moment as we received METC approval. Our investigational Device (first prototype of the invention) will be analyzed and calibrated during this trial. At the moment we are at stage two in the European Innovation Council accelerator (EIC-A) grant application (2,5M); with this funding the defenitive product will be produced and distributed in a international multicenter trial for which we have letter of intend from Key Opnion Leaders from centers in Germmany, France and the United States.