Samuel V. Lichtenstein

Biography

 Dr. Samuel V. Lichtenstein is Clinical Professor of Surgery and University Head of the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of British Columbia and Regional Cardiac Program Medical Director, Providence Health Care & Vancouver Coastal Health. Dr. Lichtenstein was until recently Director of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at St. Paul’s Hospital, a position he held for 20 years. Besides his medical degree, Dr. Lichtenstein holds a Ph.D. in engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. Publications include approximately 140 peer reviewed articles as well as book chapters and invited reviews. Early in his career, he introduced the notion of performing open heart surgery at normothermia which challenged previously held concepts of the importance of hypothermia in open heart surgery. As a result, he was invited to operate and speak at multiple institutions worldwide including the Cleveland Clinic in the U.S.A., both military and university hospitals in Beijing, China, Spain, Israel, and other institutions in Canada. Most recently, Dr. Lichtenstein and his group were the first in the world to implant an aortic valve for aortic stenosis through the apex of the left ventricle in man. Catheter-based aortic valve implantation has become a tremendously important development in the treatment of aortic stenosis and the transapical approach allows treatment of patients with peripheral vascular disease. The group in Vancouver has the largest experience in the world with this modality. Dr. Lichtenstein holds multiple patents. In 1998, he developed a suture-based mechanical coronary anastomosis system for Perclose, a company in the San Francisco Bay area. The patented methodology has been adapted for femoral artery closures after interventional cardiological procedures. In 1999, Dr. Lichtenstein co-founded Ventrica, a biotech start-up in Menlo Park, California, based on a magnetic coupling system for coronary anastomosis. More recently, he co-founded biotech start-ups in Vancouver focused on percutaneous solutions for treating atrial fibrillation and methods of reducing x-ray exposure for long fluoroscopic procedures.    

Research Interest

  Myocardial protection Postgraduate education Development of new instruments to improve quality and consistency of cardiac surgical procedures