Department of Cardiology - University Hospital of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

About the Department of Cardiology at University Hospital of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

The Department of Cardiology at the University Hospital of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich offers the full range of diagnostic and therapeutic services for patients with cardiovascular diseases. The department specializes in drug therapy and modern interventional cardiac catheter-based procedures. Patients with heart failure, myocardial infarction, heart valve pathologies, and arrhythmias are regularly admitted to the medical facility. The department's medical team has more than 300 employees, for whom it is important that each patient receives the most effective treatment in comfortable conditions. The department has 144 beds. Cardiologists admit about 7,500 inpatients annually. More than 20,000 patients receive medical care on an outpatient basis. The department is rightly proud of the numerous certificates of the German Cardiac Society (DGK) in treating acute coronary syndrome, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation, as well as transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and the MitraClip procedure. The department is headed by Prof. Dr. med. Steffen Massberg.

Heart failure treatment is among the priority tasks of the department's experts, and therefore a highly specialized outpatient clinic was created here to admit patients with this pathology. The development of heart failure may be caused both by hereditary myocardial diseases and by acquired inflammatory heart diseases (for example, myocarditis). The department's cardiologists develop an individual heart failure treatment regimen for each patient, since without high-quality and timely treatment, the disease may cause irreversible consequences. In many cases, treatment with advanced drugs is used to control the pathology. If medications do not produce the desired results, cardiologists and cardiac surgeons will perform interventions to implant artificial cardiac assist devices. The last-line therapy is a heart transplant, which is performed in the Department of Cardiac Surgery.

The department has been admitting patients with structural and functional heart valve disorders for many years. The department's cardiologists have a perfect command of the advanced techniques of catheter-based interventions for aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valve diseases. An innovative procedure for aortic valve replacement is TAVI (transcatheter aortic valve implantation) catheter-based intervention. This treatment method is of particular value for elderly patients who are simply not able to undergo a full-fledged operation due to concomitant diseases, which until recently was the only possible treatment method. The department's cardiologists also successfully use the endovascular clipping method (MitraClip) for treating mitral valve insufficiency.

Heart rhythm disturbances (arrhythmias) are also quite common in the department's clinical practice. The most informative and reliable diagnostic test to confirm this diagnosis is electrocardiography (ECG), including stress ECG. In the case of mild forms of arrhythmia, a patient is prescribed drugs. When dealing with the treatment of more severe cases, the department's cardiologists resort to radiofrequency ablation. The essence of this therapeutic procedure is to destroy the pathological tissues of the heart that cause an abnormal heart rhythm. The tasks of the department's specialists include monitoring patients with previously implanted pacemakers, defibrillators, and devices for cardiac resynchronization therapy, as well as monitoring the functioning of these devices and their adjustment.

The department specializes in the diagnostics and treatment of the following heart diseases:

• Myocardial infarction
  • Resuscitation measures to stabilize a patient's condition followed by long-term drug therapy
• Heart failure
  • Drug therapy
  • Implantation of cardiac assist devices (in collaboration with cardiac surgeons)
• Arrhythmias (heart rhythm disturbances)
  • Pharmacotherapy
  • Radiofrequency ablation
  • Monitoring of patients with previously implanted pacemakers, defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization therapy devices, as well as monitoring and adjustment of these devices
• Heart valve pathologies
  • Aortic valve stenosis and insufficiency
    • Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI)
  • Mitral valve stenosis and insufficiency
    • MitraClip procedure
  • Tricuspid valve stenosis and regurgitation
    • Catheter-based interventions
• Left atrial appendage defects
  • Catheter-based procedure to place an occluder to close the left atrial appendage
• Patent foramen ovale
  • Catheter-based procedure to close the defect
• Atrial and ventricular septal defects
  • Catheter-based closure procedures
• Coronary artery disease
  • Drug therapy for mild forms of the pathology (severe ischemia requires surgery)
• Carditis
  • Pharmacotherapy
• Cardiomyopathy
  • Pharmacotherapy
  • Transcoronary ablation of septal hypertrophy (TASH) for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
• Arterial hypertension
  • Pharmacotherapy
• Other diseases and other medical services