The University of Ottawa Heart Institute is pleased to announce that David Messika-Zeitoun, MD, PhD, FESC, was selected as the recipient of the 2022 Global Achievement Award. The Global Achievement Award recognizes a UOHI investigator who has made, or is demonstrating the potential to make, a global impact in their sphere of work.
Dr. Messika-Zeitoun is globally recognized for his exceptional contributions to of the field of valvular heart disease. He has received training in the best laboratories in this area in the world (Dr. Alec Vahanian (Paris University) and Dr. Maurice Enriquez-Sarano (Mayo Clinic) and has emerged as a true international leader. He is associated Editor of the European Heart Journal and Chairman of the Working Group of Canadian Cardiovascular Society on Valvular Heart Disease.
Dr. Messika-Zeitoun is an internationally recognized expert in valvular heart disease and has made novel insights into the disease pathophysiology, epidemiology, and management. This past year he was invited to give presentations at 8 international conferences on his ground-breaking work. He is also a well-published clinician-investigator with almost 250 published articles with an impressive 14 in 2021, and 16 in 2022. In a seminal paper (Circulation 2004), he validated the methodology for the measurement of the degree of aortic valve calcification in vivo using computed tomography. He established thresholds for the definition of severe aortic stenosis, provided important clinical applications in the subset of patients with discordant grading, and finally suggested that it may provide an incremental prognostic value over echocardiography. Its use has been implemented in the latest European Society of Cardiology Guidelines as a routine tool for the management of patients with aortic stenosis.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has revolutionized the management of patients with aortic stenosis, and Dr. Messika-Zeitoun’s work on the comparison of echocardiographic and computed tomography measurements of the aortic valve annulus for the choice of the prosthesis size during TAVR is considered a landmark paper and one of the most cited in this area. Dr. Messika-Zeitoun has been also deeply involved in the development of transcatheter mitral valve therapy, where he led the Core lab in charge of the first randomized controlled trial comparing MitraClip to medical management in patients with functional mitral regurgitation (NEJM, 2018).
Internationally, Dr. Messika-Zeitoun is involved in several important consortiums and collaborative multicenter groups which will continue to enable his research endeavours here at UOHI. He was also recently named the joint chair of the Dr. T.G. Mesana Endowed Team Chair in Heart Valve Disease, with an initial amount of $4 million, which is among the largest chairs dedicated to cardiovascular research in Canada. His selection as the first joint chair from the is a testament to his commitment to continuously explore innovative ways to improve screening and detection of valvular heart disease, developing and testing medications, and simulating interventions to advance care and improve outcomes. This will undoubtedly change the course of how valvular heart disease is treated at a global level.
Congratulations to Dr. Messika-Zeitoun on his outstanding global achievements!