LONDON CARDIAC & VASCULAR ASSOCIATES - Key Persons

Dr Jonathan Byrne

Job Titles:
  • Consultant
  • Consultant Cardiologist
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  • Previous Team Member
Dr Jonathan Byrne has been a Consultant Cardiologist at King's College Hospital since 2008. Dr Byrne completed his undergraduate medical training in Bristol and then continued general professional medical training in the South East of England and London. He was awarded a PhD in the academic department of Cardiology at King's College Hospital in 2004. He completed extensive training in interventional cardiology at King's College Hospital from 2004 and continued this along with transoesophageal echocardiography and cardiac CT scanning training on Vancouver Island, Canada in 2006 as an international fellow. Alongside a wealth of general cardiology experience including the assessment and treatment of coronary and valvular heart disease and risk stratification he also treats hypertension and general heart rhythm disturbances, patients with angina, heart failure and high blood pressure. Dr Byrne is an interventional cardiologist who specialises in the treatment of coronary artery disease. This includes the treatment of narrowed, diseased heart arteries with angioplasty and stents, with the majority of procedures performed form the radial (wrist). He also treats patients with valvular heart disease with new treatments which do not require an operation, such as TAVI (transcatheter aortic valve implantation) and Mitraclip (percutaneous treatment of the mitral valve). As well as coronary and structural intervention he also carries out a number of imaging tests for the heart including transoesophageal echocardiography and cardiac CT scanning to screen and assess patients with potential coronary disease. Since his appointment as a consultant in 2008 he has also been pioneering in the development of the structural programme at Kings College Hospital, with the use of novel percutaneous techniques to treat aortic and mitral valve disease. His research interests have included the molecular mechanisms which underlie the development of left ventricular hypertrophy, and the application of coronary physiology in an interventional setting. His research has also explored the differences and potential advantages of intervention performed from the radial artery. Outside of work Dr Byrne enjoys music, both listening and playing! He is currently re-learning the piano. If he's not practicing the piano he can be found cycling, playing tennis or skiing.

Dr Narbeh Melikian

Job Titles:
  • Consultant
  • Consultant Cardiologist
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Dr Narbeh Melikian is a Consultant Cardiologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at King's College Hospital and King's College School of Medicine in London. Dr Melikian trained at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospitals Medical School, qualifying with Distinction in 1996 and was awarded a Doctorate in Medicine (MD) from the University of London in 2010. He underwent postgraduate training at the Hammersmith, Royal Brompton and King's College Hospitals in London. Dr Melikian undertook a two-year interventional Fellowship at the world-renowned Cardiovascular Centre in Aalst, Belgium and a heart valve diseases Fellowship at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. To date Dr Melikian has received over 11 academic and clinical awards including the prestigious British Cardiac Society John Parker Fellowship (2005 - 2007), the Foord Caiger Prize in Cardiology and the Golding Bird and Treasurer's Medals. In 2012 he was invited to join a panel of cardiologists providing emergency cardiology cover for the London Olympic Games. Dr Melikian maintains a large clinical practice encompassing all aspects of coronary and structural intervention as well as general cardiology. In parallel with his complex interventional work he maintains a busy general cardiology practice covering a wide spectrum of pathology with a special emphasis on management of chest discomfort, breathlessness, cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure and heart valve disease. He regularly assesses and treats patients with cardiovascular risk factors and has a special interest in management of patients with resistant high blood pressure. He has an international reputation in interventional cardiology specialising in all aspects of coronary intervention in particular complex angioplasty as well as interventional management of myocardial infarction, and remains one of the highest volume interventional cardiologists in the UK. He also has an active structural interventional practice regularly closing septal defects such as patent foramen ovale (PFO) as well as left atrial appendage (LAA) with emphasis on prevention of stroke and TIA. He was instrumental in securing national commissioning for these structural services to King's College Hospital in 2014 and has set up the Neuro-Cardiac Multidisciplinary Meeting (MDM) with the colleagues from the regional Stroke and Neurology Units at King's College Hospital which he continues to chair. Dr Melikian has an ongoing clinical research programme with an international reputation on coronary physiology. He collaborates widely and is involved in multiple international clinical trials. To date, his research has been supported through a number of competitively awarded scientific grants from the British Cardiac Society, British Heart Foundation and National Academy of Sciences. Outside of work Dr Melikian's passion is music, he loves all sorts of music from Coldplay to the Eurythmics to Elgar! To compliment this, he plays the piano and sings in a choir.

Mr Ranjit Deshpande

Job Titles:
  • Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon
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Mr Ranjit Deshpande became a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at King's College Hospital in 2007. He trained in the South-East Thames London Cardiothoracic Surgical Programme. In 2005 after the award of FRCS (C/Th) from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, he received a prestigious scholarship from the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgeons to work in OLV Zeinkenhaus, Belgium to train in port-access endoscopic mitral valve repair surgery for mitral valve prolapse. He was appointed as Senior Registrar in Advanced Aortic & Robotic Cardiac Surgery at the Royal Brompton Hospital in 2006. In addition to a wealth of knowledge across general cardiothoracic surgery, Mr Deshpande specialises in Minimally Invasive (Key Hole) Cardiac & Thoracic Surgery. He is known for his expertise in the use of bilateral internal mammary arteries for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) to achieve near total arterial re-vascularisation for ischemic heart disease. He is internationally renowned for endoscopic CABG which is performed as "beating heart" procedure without opening the sternum. To compliment his clinical work, Mr Deshpande is one of the lead surgeons of the world renowned "Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation" (TAVI) programme at King's College Hospital. He is an integral member of the complex major aortic surgery group for specially designed aortic root and aortic dissection surgery as an initiative of the South London Cardiac Network. Mr Deshpande is also the Founder and Treasurer of the British and Irish Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. When he's not at work, Mr Deshpande enjoys spending time with his family and playing cricket as well as music and theatre.