Partner 8: Universität Zürich (UZH)

Clinical Centre

Within the University of Zürich, two clinical entities will participate in the ESPOIR project: the University Hospital (Universitätsspital) Zürich, and the University Children’s Hospital (Kinderspital), Zürich. The University Hospital Zürich is a multispeciality hospital with a medical and paramedical staff of 6200, treating 200,000 patients per year. It has 850 beds catering to 270,000 hospital days/year, one of the largest in Switzerland. University Children’s Hospital, Zürich is a 218 bedded hospital with 1832 personal treating over 9000 patients per year. In close cooperation with the University of Zürich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH Zürich), research is done at the highest level; researchers at both hospitals are thus at the forefront of medical advances and regularly receive national and international awards. 

The Department of Cardiac Surgery at the University Hospital Zürich has a renowned academic history starting with Åke Senning, who performed the first Atrial switch operation for transposition of the great arteries. Marko Turina, who succeeded Senning, has more than 700 peer reviewed publications, was the past president and a long time editor in chief of the European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery. 

The UZH completes the ESPOIR clinical network and will implant 25 DHV for pulmonary valve replacement within the clinical trial and procure homografts via domino transplantation. Professor René Prêtre and his team at the University Hospital and University Children’s Hospital Zürich have long standing experience in cardiovascular surgery and are leaders in the field of conduit related research as well as in the development of minimally invasive cardiac surgery for children. This excellence is reflected in several awards received by departmental members: Professor Prêtre was awarded Swiss Person of the Year 2009 for his humanitarian surgical missions in Africa and Dr. Hitendu Dave won the Pfizer Prize 2006 for developing cosmetic and minimally invasive approaches to treat congenital heart defects. The department has further been involved in several multi-centre clinical trials, such as the Contegra multicentre study, the European Multicentric Scimitar Syndrome Study and the European Multicentric Cardiac Tumor Registry, providing the perfect background to contribute to the ESPOIR trial. 

Contributors to ESPOIR 

Prof. Dr. med. Michael Hübler, Head of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery 
Dr. Hitendu Dave, Associate Professor, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery