Priv. Doz. Dr. Rudolf Berger

Work address
Medical University of Vienna
Department of Internal Medicine II
Catheter Laboratories
Waehringer Guertel 18-20
1090 Vienna, Austria

Phone: +43 (0)1 40400 - 4614
E-Mail: rudolf.berger@meduniwien.ac.at

Know-how and research interests
My group focuses on interventional and conservative treatment of coronary artery disease with three main scientific interests:

1. In vivo studies in the catheter-laboratory: optimization of stenting techniques and follow-up to avoid complications, evaluation of new stent technologies, morphologic characterization of various aspects of coronary artery disease. Ongoing projects include the following investigations:
   
   
   • Incidence and predictors for late acquired stent malapposition of drug-eluting-stents with second-generation permanent and biodegradable polymer-coatings
   • Do aorto-coronary bypass grafts for intermediate coronary lesions accelerate atherosclerosis?
   • Pressure Wire-guided percutaneous coronary INtervention of small vessels or side branches: Functional outcome of drug-eluting stent versus Drug-Eluting Balloon with provisional bare metal stent implantation
   • Prospective evaluation of the incidence of fractures of coronary stents in patiens at high-risk - an observational study
     
     

2. Epidemiologic studies to  evaluate indications and outcome of specific types of interventional therapies. Ongoing projects include the following investigations:
   
   
   • Patients with coronary artery disease not amenable to interventional or surgical revascularization - prevalence, risk factors, long-term outcome, course of left ventricular function over time, and gender differences
   • Influence of age on relative survival of patients with stable coronary artery disease who underwent elective percutaneous intervention
     
     

3. New medical treatment for coronary artery disease. Ongoing projects include the following investigations:
   
   
   • Effects of Sildenafil on signs and symptoms of ischemia, myocardial blood flow, and markers of angiogenesis in patients with refractory coronary artery disease

Research topic (general title)

Interventional and conservative treatment of coronary artery disease

Techniques and infrastructure of the research group
In vivo studies: due to its 10-fold higher resolution compared with intravascular ultrasound, optical coherence tomography (OCT) allows near-histology range strut-level analysis and has quickly established itself as a standard tool for assessing stent-performance. As intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has a higher tissue penetration, this technology and it´s  further developements like virtual histology are still usefull for characterisation and quantification of coronary atherosclerotic plaques. Fractional flow reserve (FFR) has been established as a gold standard for invasive assessment of stenosis significance and is, therefore, an important diagnostic tool to evaluate various scientific questions.
For epidemiologic studies we use a large database, at the moment including 30.000 patients.

We cooperate with other departments and institutions to obtain specific examinations – e.g. departement of nuclear medicine, department of radiology.

5 selected publications

• Scherzer S, Berger R*, Krenn L, Roth C, Gangl C, Kaider A, Delle-Karth G, Neunteufl T. *Co-first author who contributed equally to this work. Percutaneous Coronary Intervention of Chronic Total Occlusions by Magnetic Navigation  Compared With Conventional Wire Technique – a Randomized, Controlled Study. Circulation; submitted for publication.
  
  
• Moertl D, Hammer A, Steiner S, Hutuleac R, Berger R. Dose-dependent effects of omega-3-polyunsaturated fatty acids on systolic left ventricular function, endothelial function, and markers of inflammation in chronic heart failure of non-ischemic origin - a double-blind, placebo-controlled, three-arm study. Am Heart J 2011;161:915.e1-9.
  
  
• Berger R, Moertl D, Peter S, Ahmadi R, Huelsmann M, Yamuti S, Wagner B, Pacher R. NT-proBNP-guided, intensive patient management in addition to multidisciplinary care in chronic heart failure - a three-arm, prospective, randomised pilot-study. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2010;55:645-53.
  
  
• Berger R, Shankar A, Fruhwald F, Fahrleitner-Pammer A, Freemantle N, Tavazzi L, Cleland JGF, Pacher R. Relationships between cardiac resynchronization therapy and NT-proBNP in patients with heart failure and markers of cardiac dyssynchrony - an analysis from the Cardiac Resynchronization in Heart Failure (CARE-HF) Study. Eur Heart J 2009;30:2109-16.
  
  
• Meyer B, Mörtl D, Strecker K, Hülsmann M, Kulemann V, Neunteufl T, Pacher R, Berger R. Flow-mediated vasodilatation predicts outcome in patients with chronic heart failure – comparison with B-type natriuretic peptide. J Am Coll Cardiol 2005;46:1011-8.