Danish Cardiology Society today, 7 May, honors Dr Kristian Wachtell from Rigshospitalet for his outstanding effort in research on heart disease.
The award is given for his great tenacity in research across the spectrum of heart disease.By mapping a series of diseases of the heart and the underlying reasons why they might occur, Dr Wachtell along with a larger team of doctors and researchers have shown that some types of fatal heart disease is preventable with the right treatment. In addition, they have shown that although the disease is fully or partially developed, it pays to treat to prevent even more heart disease or premature death.
Dr Kristian Wachtell graduated from the Copenhagen University Medical School in 1992 and has since then researched the field of cardiology and hypertension at Rigshospitalet and Glostrup University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark as well as the Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA. Dr Wachtell has been an investigator in several land-mark clinical studies evaluating drug-treatment for atrial fibrillation, heart failure, aortic stenosis, acute myocardial infarction and left ventricular hypertrophy in hypertension. In 1999 he defended his Ph.D.-thesis on ventricular arrhythmia in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy at the University of Copenhagen. Since then his research has mainly focused on evaluation of systolic and diastolic left ventricular function in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy, but also atrial fibrillation and aortic stenosis has continued interest. Furthermore, he was the secretary of the LIFE ECHO study evaluating treatment of losartan vs. atenolol to regression of echocardiographic-verified left ventricular hypertrophy as well as the effect of left ventricular mass regression. Dr Wachtell is one of two investigators having read several thousand echocardiograms in the DANAMI II trial evaluating primary percutaneous coronary intervention vs. thrombolysis in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Finally, Dr. Wachtell is on the Steering Committee of the SEAS trial evaluating Simvastatin/Ezetimibe vs. placebo in patients with aortic stenosis resulting in a paper in New England Journal of Medicine in 2008. The research effort has resulted in 140 peer-review papers, 195 abstracts in addition to 29 editorials, reviews, book chapters, letters and other publications.Dr Wachtell has been awarded several prizes in the field of hypertension and cardiology for outstanding research and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology. Dr Wachtell is a specialist in cardiology and vascular medicine and is currently affiliated with Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark and the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York. Clinically, he holds an attending position at the Cardiology Intensive Care Unit at Rigshospitalet treating patients with acute heart failure and multiorgan failure.