Arie Pieter Kappetein MD, PhD

Dr. Pieter Kappetein, MD, PhD, is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Professor and Chair of the residency program at the Thoraxcenter at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is board certified in Cardiothoracic Surgery. His specialty is cardiothoracic surgery.

He is Secretary General of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery, President of CTSnet and member of the Board of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and chairman of the International Cooperation committee of the STS in the USA.

Besides this he is member of the Editorial Board of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery and Deputy Editor of Eurointervention. His clinical interests include aortic valve surgery, indications, outcome; percutaneous aortic and mitral valve replacement and repair ; coronary surgery; outcome compared to DES; and new techniques in the field, education, and epidemiology.

He is co-principal investigator of the SYNTAX and EXCEL trial (comparing coronary surgery with drug eluting stents) and member of the steering committee of the REPRISE III and SURTAVI trial on percutaneous valves and the RESHAPE trial: the evaluation of the Mitraclip in patients with heart failure. He was also member of the steering committee of the Re-align trial on Dabigatran in patients with mechanical heart valves.

His current research efforts are focused on the evaluation of new surgical techniques and the comparison of new techniques in cardiothoracic surgery with new techniques in interventional cardiology. He is project leader of the ‘One valve for life” research programme, a study together with the Technical University in Eindhoven and the University Hospital in Utrecht developing a tissue engineered heart valve.