Department of Cardiac Surgery

The Department of Cardiac Surgery at LMU Munich has two hospitals (Campus Großhadern and Clinic Augustinum) where the complete spectrum of open heart surgery (>3,000 per year) is carried out. Besides the regular treatment of coronary artery disease by bypass surgery and minimally invasive approaches to the treatment of heart valve disease, our clinical focus is on aortic surgery. We offer our patients the most modern aortic valve and vascular prostheses and perform more than 200 of big aortic operations per year, attracting patients from all over Germany and abroad. Another clinical focus of our department is the treatment of terminal heart and lung failure by mechanical circulatory support (ECMO and ventricular assist devices) and heart and lung transplant (both in adults and children). Over the last couple of years, our department has participated in clinical studies to develop and translate modern technologies of organ preservation by machine perfusion of donor hearts into clinical practice. Together with our colleagues from the Department of Thoracic Surgery we run one of the busiest lung transplant programs in Europe.

We are engaged both in clinical and experimental research covering a wide spectrum of cardiovascular topics. Examples are genetics of aortic disease, tissue engineering of heart valves, endocarditis and xenotransplantation of both heart and lung. We have international collaborations with top class universities like Harvard, Yale and Cape Town. Our Department has funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), German Center for Lung Research (DZL) and some other smaller funding agencies.

We teach medical students, Ph.D. students and residents for Cardiac Surgery in a designated program.