BHF pays tribute to Professor Tony Gershlick – British Heart Foundation

1 December 2020 Julia Bakker

The British Heart Foundation has paid tribute to the life and work of Professor Tony Gershlick, who sadly died on Friday the 20th of November 2020 after contracting Covid-19.

Professor Gershlick was a Consultant Cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital and Professor of Interventional Cardiology at the University of Leicester. He was considered a leading light interventional cardiology a field which involves using angiograms and stents to treat heart attacks and heart disease.

Professor Gershlick was a part of many major advances in the field and received around 4 million in research funding from the British Heart Foundation throughout his 30-year career. His pioneering work played a major role in improving how we treat heart attacks and continues to benefit patients today. In the mid-90s he was the first person to insert a so-called drug-eluting stent in a patient in the UK, now the standard type of stent used for treating narrowing of coronary arteries.

The BHF-funded REACT trial, which he led and noted as one of his proudest achievements, aimed to find out how to best treat heart attack patients who dont respond to clot busting drugs. The study found that people who also received angioplasty a surgical procedure to open the blocked artery was more beneficial than giving a further dose of the clot-busting drug or doing nothing, and also saved lives. Angioplasty is now standard practice for treating heart attacks around the world.

He also led the CvLPRIT trial, which showed that during a heart attack, doctors should consider treating other bystander narrowings in the coronary arteries, as well as the main culprit blockage causing the heart attack. In the trial, patients who received this so-called, complete revascularisation had better long-term survival and were less likely to experience further heart complications.

Professor Gershlick will be remembered not only for his achievements, skills and enthusiasm for interventional cardiology, but also his razor sharp sense of humour, kindness, and passion for mentoring and supporting less experienced colleagues throughout their careers.

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, our Medical Director said:

Tony was a true giant in interventional cardiology, and a mentor and friend to many. I worked with Tony in Leicester for over 30 years and indeed did my first angiogram with him. Tony helped to establish Glenfield Hospital as a centre of excellence in clinical and academic cardiology and his zest for advancing cardiac care by gathering evidence through clinical trials never diminished. Indeed, at the time of his death, he was leading another major BHF-funded trial, RAPID-NSTEMI, to test whether some patients with smaller heart attacks would benefit from being treated as rapidly as those with bigger heart attacks.

Tony helped an enormous number of patients by ensuring that they benefited from the best available treatments in a timely manner. He was an outstanding teacher and messages of condolences on social media and in the scientific press since the news of Tonys death, from both previous colleagues and patients, illustrate just how highly he was regarded. He will be truly missed

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BHF pays tribute to Professor Tony Gershlick - British Heart Foundation