Prize recognizes Katzen’s outstanding contributions to interventional cardiology

The TCT 2007 Career Achievement Award was presented to Barry T. Katzen, MD, in a ceremony yesterday afternoon. Martin B. Leon, MD, founder and chairman emeritus of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, presented the award, which recognizes pioneering work in interventional medicine and extraordinary talent and dedication in both research and clinical endeavors.

Katzen, founder and medical director of the Baptist Cardiac and Vascular Institute and a clinical professor of radiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, has forged a career that demonstrates distinguishing similarities with of past award recipients: operator skills, educator, academician, and innovator, according toLeon.

“In this celebration of the 30th anniversary of the first coronary angioplasty, many people forget that
non-coronary peripheral intervention began more than a decade before Andreas Gruentzig’s pioneering first
case and strongly influenced all facets of coronary technique and equipment development,” Leon said. “Barry Katzen is unique in the field of lesserinvasive catheter-based therapy in that he was a leader among that early group of endovascular therapists, but he also bridged the gap by being the first to embrace the concept of multidisciplinary management of vascular disease. He remains at the pinnacle of our subspecialty as an innovative firstin- man pioneer, educator, and consensus builder in making lesser-invasive therapies available and cost effective to the broadest range of physicians and patients.”

A history of firsts

In 1974, Katzen completed a threemonth post-doctoral fellowship under the direction of Plinio Rossi, MD, at
the Institute of Radiology at the University of Rome in Italy. During this period, Katzen saw some of the earliest angioplasties in the European patient care approach, and saw the first angioplasty in Rome.

When he returned to the United States, Katzen joined the staff at Alexandria Hospital in Falls Church, Va. It was there, in 1978, that Katzen performed the first percutaneous transluminal angioplasty in the United States. Over the years, he also was among the first to perform a transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt procedure, catheter-directed lysis, abdominal endografts, and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty in the United States.

Katzen also organized the first live interventional teaching course in the United States. In 1995, he helped create the Endovascular Forum (http:// www.endovascular.org), one of the first interactive websites for physicians on the topic of circulatory diseases, and he is the co-author of four textbooks in interventional medicine.

Katzen moved to his hometown of Miami in 1987 and become the founder and medical director of Baptist Cardiac & Vascular Institute in Miami, and Clinical Professor of Radiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He is also the founding editor of the peer-review journal Techniques in Vascular and Interventional Radiology and is currently one of the chief medical editors of Endovascular Today. He is presently involved in the development of carotid artery stents and stent-grafts to repair aortic and thoracic aneurysms.

“I’d like to thank the organizers of TCT for bestowing this honor on me and making me part of such an incredibly distinguished group of pioneers and contributors to cardiovascular medicine who preceded me,” Katzensaid. “I want to thank all the physicians and partners, nurses and technicians,and all of the patients I’ve treated through the course of my career to date because they are the ones frequently who are the pioneers. I’ve always said … ‘remember it’s the patient taking the risks.’ You’re not really taking the risk when you’re pioneering and doing the first of anything. As we in our own practices do our own firsts every day it’s very important to consider it from the patient’s point of view. Remember, patient care is the most critical thing.”

Past achievements and positions

Katzen is a board member of Baptist Hospital of Miami Foundation; he has served as chairman of the
American Heart Association’s Council of Cardiovascular Radiology; he is a fellow and past president of the Society of Interventional Radiology; and a member of the North American Chapter of the International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery. Last year, Katzen received the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology’s Gold Medal for lifetime achievement.

While in practice at Alexandria Hospital, Katzen also served as a consultant for the National Institutes of
Health, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He was
Director of Resident Research and a Clinical Professor of Radiology at George Washington University Medical School.

Katzen graduated from the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1970 and completed his residency in diagnostic radiology at the New York Hospital- Cornell University Medical Center. A public spotlight focused on Katzen in September 2005 when he served as a member of Vice President Dick Cheney’s surgical team to repair a popliteal aneurysm by stent implantation at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C.