New leaders drive innovation and access to heart-failure care

The Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation program at UK Gill Heart & Vascular Institute recently named new leadership with the goal of building on a legacy of compassionate, comprehensive care while enhancing access to care and increasing the number of experts across the department.  

In March 2024, Dr. Matthias Loebe was named surgical director of heart and lung transplantation, and in September, Dr. Masashi Kawabori joined the team as surgical director of Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS). Drs. Loebe and Kawabori bring decades of experience advancing care and increasing access to care, a major goal across the UK HealthCare enterprise. 

Matthias Loebe builds on decades of leadership and innovation  

Dr. Loebe, with over 30 years of leadership in advancing the field of heart and lung transplantation, wants to continue building on an already world-class program. Throughout his career, Dr. Loebe has participated in the design and clinical testing of many of today’s mechanical circulatory support devices and has hundreds of academic publications, but his goals are clear. 

“I want to strengthen what is already a comprehensive team approach to these advanced diseases – we want to continue building a meaningful network within our community to extend access to advanced therapies while broadening this access to these therapies for disadvantaged communities,” said Dr. Loebe. “We want to grow the use of LVAD as destination therapy all while increasing combined organ transplants as needed and developing myocardial recovery after LVAD support. We can do all of that right here at UK.” 

Dr. Loebe also highlighted UK as a world leader in studying myocardial recovery and a long history of leadership in ECMO application under Dr. Jay Zwischenberger and others as noteworthy strengths of the program that he wants to continue, along with strong expertise in mechanical circulatory support. 

“UK has used MCS as a bridge to transplant and continues to be the largest MCS program in Kentucky,” said Dr. Loebe. “Using MCS to enhance recovery has been championed here, and we want to continue using MCS as an alternative to transplant – our expertise in MCS for heart disease should allow us to translate this experience into applications for lung disease as well.”  

Masashi Kawabori hones in on interventional care for a unique subset of patients  

Dr. Kawabori, as new surgical director of Mechanical Circulatory Support, brings a strong background in interventional care for heart transplant and cardiogenic shock patients in a rapidly developing field.  

“In many cases, 10 years ago if a patient was collapsing, they would die on the way to the hospital, but now, because of new devices and advances in the field of MCS, we can save many more lives,” said Dr. Kawabori. “This opens the door for more transplants and LVAD surgeries.  

New directors, Matthias Loebe, MD, PhD (left) and Masashi Kawabori, MD (right) look to expand offerings and care for Kentuckians living with advanced heart failure. 

“This is a major strength that I can bring to the table: we have an excellent ECMO program, and by expanding this, we are building a strong bridge between ECMO and cardiogenic shock.” 

This bridge will allow for more transplants and save more lives, positively impacting Kentuckians and their families across the Commonwealth. In his new role, Dr. Kawabori is adamant on expanding use of ECMO and MCS across departments. 

“I came here as director with the goal of increasing the use of and the number of patients on mechanical circulatory support – this is a big piece as we look to expand our access to care,” said Dr. Kawabori. “We are adding more intentional care for cardiogenic shock patients, and we will continue to increase our capacity in both MCS and ECMO to help other local hospitals and smaller centers across the region.” 

Increasing volumes of viable donor organs 

Another boom for the program is the increase in donation after circulatory death, or DCD, transplants. The use of transportation devices and new technology has helped to expand the area from which physicians can obtain hearts and lungs, and Drs. Loebe and Kawabori have embraced this new pathway and will continue to increase capacity through an innovative, multidisciplinary approach. 

“Our center has embraced heart donation after cardiac death very successfully,” 

said Dr. Loebe. “We are able to evaluate the organs on a machine before we transplant them – we hope that in the future we will be able to treat the organs with antirejection medications or other modalities.” 

A vision for the future 

Looking to the future, the two doctors see more cross-disciplinary care, more technological advances, more access for underserved communities, and, most importantly, more lives saved through transplant and other advanced techniques. 

“Of course we want to expand the number of heart transplants, and we also want to expand our offerings in other capacities: more mechanical circular support and more ECMO across our geography,” said Dr. Kawabori. “It’s always our goal save more patients by expanding and increasing access to care throughout Kentucky and beyond."