Massachusetts General Hospital

Biography

Eric M. Isselbacher, MD, is a graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by fellowships in cardiovascular disease and echocardiography at Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital in 1996 as a staff member of the Cardiology Division and the Cardiac Ultrasound Laboratory. Currently he is associate director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center, co-director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Thoracic Aortic Center, and medical director of Cardiac Unit Associates, which is the academic group practice for non-invasive cardiology. He is also an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Isselbacher's teaching contributions include serving as preceptor of the Cardiology Division Fellows' Morning Report, serving as the attending physician on the Paul Dudley White Cardiology Consult Service and the Cardiac Step-Down Unit, weekly teaching in the echocardiography fellowship, and lectures each year in a variety of Harvard Medical School's continuing education courses in cardiology and internal medicine. He is the author of book chapters on aortic disease in multiple editions of Braunwald's Heart Disease, Cecil Textbook of Medicine, Atlas of Vascular Disease and Essential Cardiology. He received the W. Proctor Harvey, MD Young Teacher Award from the American College of Cardiology in 2001.

Research

Dr. Isselbacher's research focuses primarily on thoracic aortic disease and echocardiography. He is the co-founder and co-principal investigator of the International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection (IRAD), which is the world's largest registry of patients with aortic dissection and has been the leader in investigating optimal diagnostic and treatment strategies for this disease. In the Massachusetts General Hospital Thoracic Aortic Center, he and his colleagues have been investigating the clinical and molecular genetics of thoracic aortic disease of all etiologies. He also has been engaged in research in the clinical application of echocardiography. He is author or co-author of over 60 original research publications in medical journals.

Publications

View my most recent publications at PubMed

Selected recent publications:

Gilon D, Mehta RH, Oh JK, Januzzi JL Jr, Bossone E, Cooper JV, Smith DE, Fang J, Nienaber CA, Eagle KA, Isselbacher EM. Characteristics and in-hospital outcomes of patients with cardiac tamponade complicating type A acute aortic dissection. Am J Cardiol 2009;103:1029-31.

Abbara S, Kalva S, Cury RC, Isselbacher EM. Thoracic aortic disease: spectrum of multidetector computed tomography imaging findings. J Cardiovasc Comput Tomogr 2007;1:40-54.

Tsai TT, Evangelista A, Nienaber CA, Myrmel T, Meinhardt G, Cooper JV, Smith DE, Suzuki T, Fattori R, Llovet A, Froehlich J, Hutchison S, Distante A, Sundt T, Beckman J, Januzzi JL Jr, Isselbacher EM, Eagle KA. International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection. Partial thrombosis of the false lumen in patients with acute type B aortic dissection. N Engl J Med 2007;357:349-59.

Tsai TT, Isselbacher EM, Trimarchi S, Bossone E, Pape L, Januzzi JL, Evangelista A, Oh JK, Llovet A, Beckman J, Cooper JV, Smith DE, Froehlich JB, Fattori R, Eagle KA, Nienaber CA. International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection. Acute type B aortic dissection: does aortic arch involvement affect management and outcomes? Insights from the International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection (IRAD). Circulation 2007; 116(11 Suppl):I150-6.

Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Systemic Cardiovascular Disease

Experts from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Heart, Vascular and Stroke Care present a dynamic symposium on systemic cardiovascular disease.

Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Systemic Cardiovascular Disease: An Integrated Approach to Treating Heart Failure and Valve Disease, Vascular Disease

Experts from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Heart, Vascular and Stroke Care present a dynamic symposium on systemic cardiovascular disease.