Cardiothoracic Surgery clinical trials

For more than 50 years, The Alfred Cardiothoracic Surgery Clinical Trials Unit has been improving the clinical outcomes of patients with heart disease, lung disease and traumatic chest injuries.

We need clinical trials to prove that a new medication, device or treatment is safe and effective for people.

Without clinical trials, new treatments and medicines cannot be approved for use in Australia.

Find out more about clinical trials

About us

The Alfred Cardiothoracic Surgery Clinical Trials Unit improves treatments for patients with heart disease, lung disease and traumatic chest injuries.

We assess scientific literature and previous research to:

Develop and test our new ideas
Research new technologies, techniques or other interventions

We also compare new surgical methods against our standard practices to continually improve our patient’s clinical outcomes.

Find out more about our Cardiothoracic Surgery service.

What are Phase I, II, III or IV clinical trials?

There are four different phases of a clinical trial. Each phase is represented by a roman numeral.

Find out more about what happens in each phase

Offer our patients the safest, innovative, cutting edge treatments in order to achieve the best short and long term clinical and quality of life outcomes

Our focus

We focus on conducting clinical trials which test:

Artificial hearts and mechanical assist devices
Developing new techniques in heart and lung transplantation
Improved methods for preserving donor hearts for heart transplants
Ways to heal and mend rib fractures
Ways to minimise surgery trauma, such as using video assisted surgery
Reducing complications after cardiac surgery

We also conduct retrospective studies, where we look at historical clinical information of patients who have received a new surgical intervention including medical devices.

Development and world 'first in human' trial of the ground breaking VentrAssist™ mechanical heart assist device.
First implantation of the new generation HeartMate 3™ mechanical heart assist device in the Asia Pacific region. First international trial to prove the safety of this device in humans. The device is now approved for use in Australia and worldwide, improving outcomes for patients with end stage heart failure.
Performed one of the first rib fixation studies, proving the benefit of rib fixation in patients with very badly fractured ribs.
Improved sternal closure techniques for patients having heart surgery using The Sternal ZIPFIX® System.

Our team

The Cardiothoracic Surgery Clinical Trials team are leaders in their fields, with decades of Australian and international experience:

Prof Silvana Marasco - Director Cardiothoracic Surgery at The Alfred and Professor, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Monash University
Mr Adam Zimmet - Cardiothoracic & Transplantation Surgeon
Mr Atsuo Doi - Cardiothoracic & Transplantation Surgeon
Mr Julian Gooi - Cardiothoracic & Transplantation Surgeon
Mr Justin Negri - Cardiothoracic & Transplantation Surgeon
Dr Christina Kure - Research Manager, Cardiothoracic Surgery & Transplantation, The Alfred and Adjunct Lecturer Department of Medicine, Central Clinical School, Monash University
Robyn Summerhayes - Research Assistant, Cardiothoracic Surgery & Transplantation, The Alfred
Rong Shen - Research Nurse, Cardiothoracic Surgery & Transplantation, The Alfred

Are you interested in our clinical trials?

ClinTrial Refer is a quick way to see all of our open trials, in one place. It’s the easy way to find a trial that may be right for you or your patient.

Find Cardiothoracic Surgery clinical trials on ClinTrial Refer