The Wright Center’s Research to be Published in Peer-reviewed National Journal

A chief fellow of The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education’s Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program and his program director will have their work published in an upcoming edition of the peer-reviewed journal Catheterization Cardiovascular Intervention.

L: Nischay Shah, R: Samir Pancholy

The project began when Dr. Nischay Shah, one of the chief fellows of The Wright Center’s Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program, treated a patient with monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (MMVT). In this condition, the heart’s bottom chambers beat too fast. This abnormal rhythm can lead to severe issues, such as heart attacks.

The patient was referred for cardiac catheterization, and Dr. Shah consulted with Dr. Samir Pancholy, the fellowship’s program director and an internationally renowned cardiologist based in Northeast Pennsylvania.

“Going through the evidence-based decision-making process, we found a significant gap in the literature about whether procedures that improve blood flow to the heart by treating narrowed arteries or other common interventions would lead to reduced mortality or lower rates of ventricular tachycardia recurrence,” Dr. Shah said. “This prompted us to investigate further, ultimately leading to a comprehensive pooled analysis of existing studies.”

Under the guidance of Dr. Pancholy and in collaboration with peers at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University’s Sidney Kimmel Medical College, an analysis of data from PubMed, Google Scholar, the Cochrane Library, and other medical databases found that patients who had undergone additional tests for blocked arteries – such as stress tests – or had blockages treated with stents, did not show any significant improvement in survival rates or the recurrence of MMVT.

“These further tests or treatments didn’t appear to make a difference in preventing death or the return of the abnormal heart rhythm in the select group of patients studied,” Dr. Shah explained.

In November, Dr. Shah and Dr. Pancholy learned their manuscript detailing their methods and findings was accepted for publication by Catheterization Cardiovascular Intervention, an international cardiology journal. A publication date has not been announced.

Dr. Shah expressed his gratitude for Dr. Pancholy’s guidance throughout the project, explaining that his mentorship made the achievement possible.

Dr. Pancholy, who also serves as the cardiac catheterization lab director at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,  holds 73 U.S. and international patents, has co-authored three textbooks, has published several practice-changing randomized controlled trials, and has developed multiple procedural techniques to increase the safety and efficacy of the procedure of cardiac catheterization and catheter-based intervention. In 2023, The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI), the only professional medical society in the U.S. dedicated solely to interventional cardiology, named Dr. Pancholy a Master Interventionalist – an honor that fewer than 100 interventional cardiologists worldwide can claim.

The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education’s residency and fellowship programs are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. For more information, go to TheWrightCenter.org or call 570-866-3017.