Profile | Best known for the conception and introduction of vascular stents for clinical use, Ulrich Sigwart, MD, FACC, first became intrigued with the heart during his clinical rotations at the University of Munster in Germany. “The moment I first put my newly acquired stethoscope to a patient’s chest and heard the sounds that generated from their heart, I knew my future would be in cardiology,” he said.

Sigwart continues to find the heart a worthwhile target to study. His fascination with questions relating to physics and mechanics originally drew him to the medical field, and his interest in exploring the field of cardiology has been strengthened as interventions have emerged. When interventional cardiology first came on the scene in the seventies, Sigwart was fascinated with the new field and saw it as a way to explore and research the unknown.

His desire to improve patient health led him to devote his time to scaffolding diseased arteries with metallic stents, as well as the ability to revert an acute vessel closure after an angioplasty.

“The main incentive behind most achievements is the desire for improvement. You want to make something better rather than living with the ‘sub optimal.’ Simply dilating atheromatous plaques in the early eighties and hoping for the best was definitely sub optimal,” he explains.

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Sigwart was awarded the ACC’s Distinguished Scientist, Clinical Domain Award at ACC.13 in San Francisco.

Keywords: Plaque, Atherosclerotic, Stethoscopes, Cardiology, Germany, Angioplasty, Stents, Cardiology Magazine, ACC Publications

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