The Niels A. Lassen Award 2010 goes to researcher from Rigshospitalet

Today, Prof. Jens Kastrup, Consultant Surgeon, from the Department of Cardiology at Rigshospitalet receives the Prof. Niels A. Lassen Award for his years of clinical research.

Today, Prof. Jens Kastrup, Consultant Surgeon, from the Department of Cardiology received the Prof. Niels A. Lassen Award. Prof. Kastrup receives the award for his many years of clinical research, primarily within metabolic disorders and heart disease. 

 Known treatments were insufficient
Prof. Kastrup has often examined patients with heart diseases as a consequence of coronary artery diseases without being able to help them using established treatments. Therefore he decided to try and set up the new experimental treatments: genetic treatment and stem cell treatment, as new possibilities for patients with severe coronary artery disease.

Great efforts in stem cell treatment
On the basis of this, two major studies have been initiated to examine the effect of stem cell treatment in patients with either coronary artery disease or heart failure. The results of these studies are important in efforts to establish stem cell treatment as a new treatment programme for patients with severe heart disease. 

Set up Cardiac Stemcell Lab
Therefore, Prof. Kastrup has set up and manages the Cardiac Stem Cell Lab at Rigshospitalet, which has worked over the past eight years on establishing genetic treatment and stem cell treatment as a new treatment possibility for heart patients.

The research group has 15 employees attached, who have carried out several major genetic-treatment and stem-cell-treatment projects in patients with acute blood clots in the heart, chronically severe coronary artery disease and heart failure.

Promising results
Results do not suggest that genetic treatment, in conjunction with the existing treatments, is the right approach. However stem cell treatment looks more promising.

The first clinical results of newly concluded stem cell treatment for 31 patients with severe coronary artery disease showed that patients had higher physical work capacity and better pumping power of the heart muscle as early as six months after the stem cell treatment.

Improved quality of life
Heart pain in connection with strenuous physical activity was more than halved and patients’ consumption of pain-relieving heart medicine was reduced.

Patients in the study also experienced a generally improved quality of life; and the stem cell treatment was free of any side effects. Furthermore, the study showed that the more cells patients were treated with, the greater the effect of the treatment. The patients have now been monitored for one year and the effect of the treatment has not decelerated.

Passionate about heart patients
From 1984-1986, Prof. Kastrup wrote the doctoral thesis “The diabetic arteriole: The impact of diabetic microangiopathy on microcirculatory control” at the Department of Clinical Physiology, Bispebjerg Hospital, supervised by Prof. Niels A. Lassen and Prof. Hans-Henrik Parving.

Prof. Kastrup then continued his cardiological specialist training at Rigshospitalet, transferring his vast experimental knowledge from Bispebjerg Hospital about regulation of circulation. He founded a circulation physiological laboratory and a research group at the Department of Cardiology B.

He then shifted his focus away from diabetic patients with heart failure for unknown reasons and heart-transplant patients.

Over a number of years much new information was uncovered about such patients’ regulation of circulation, particularly blood flow in the legs, and this information formed the basis for several doctoral theses and PhD dissertations.

Award ceremony
The Niels A. Lassen Award was instituted in honour of Prof. Niels A. Lassen (1926-1997) who was one of the most important Danish researchers within brain and circulation research in the 20th century.

The Prof. Niels A. Lassen Award 2010 will be awarded in connection with the Research Day at Bispebjerg Hospital: Niels A. Lassen Day, Uddannelsescentret, Auditorium 1 (entrance 50), today, 7 December 2010 from 4.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. with subsequent reception.