Kenneth A. Brown, MD, FACC, FAHA

Education:

Training:

Residency

Fellowship

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA

Specialty:

Certifications:

Academic Appointments:

Biography:

Dr. Brown is an expert on cardiac risk assessment and the use of noninvasive imaging as a diagnostic and prognostic tool. He was a founding member and is Past-President of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology. Research interests include the use of nuclear cardiology imaging techniques to risk-stratify patients with coronary artery disease including those with acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina, or and planned non-cardiac surgery. He has been widely honored with various academic and professional awards, including repeated appearances in Who’s Who in America and Best Doctors in America. Currently a resident of Charlotte, Dr. Brown has also served on Jericho’s town zoning board and natural resources committee.

Major Research Interests:

Dr. Brown has published extensively in the field of nuclear cardiology as a principle investigator of original research as well as in reviews, editorials and textbooks.  He was the first to publish data showing that nuclear imaging predicts future cardiac events and has been a major contributor to the medical literature that has established the clinical utility of nuclear myocardial perfusion imaging for defining cardiac risk in patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.  This work has had a major impact in the practice of cardiology by allowing physicians to be selective in deciding which patients to send to invasive procedures and revascularization.

His ongoing research interests include the use of nuclear imaging to identify high and low risk patients receiving implantable defibrillators, the use of nuclear imaging to maximize efficiency of coronary intervention in patients with multivessel disease, and ongoing investigation of the prognostic value of stress nuclear imaging in various clinical settings.

More recently, Dr. Brown has also developed a research interest in the prognostic value of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) and has completed work establishing the predictive value of unrecognized myocardial scar detected by CMRI in patients with suspected CAD.  In addition, he has participated in research demonstrating that characterization of peri-infarction scar by delayed enhancement CMRI is a powerful predictor of post-infarction mortality.

Major Current Grants

Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Company

1999--
Principal Investigator:  “Relationship of scar or ischemia to defined by stress technetium 99m sestamibi imaging to risk of high grade ventricular arrhythmia in patients with automatic implantable cardiac defibrillators.”

Publications:

Representative Publications from a total of 99 

Brown KA.  Prognostic value of thallium-201 myocardial perfusion imaging:  A diagnostic tool comes of age.  Circulation 1991; 83:363-381.

Brown KA, Heller GV, Landin RJ, Shaw LJ, Beller GA, Pasquale MJ, Haber SB.  Early Dipyridamole Tc99m-sestamibi SPECT imaging 2-4 days after acute myocardial infarction predicts in-hospital and post-discharge cardiac events:  comparison with submaximal exercise imaging.  Circulation 1999; 100:2060-2066, 1999.

Brown KA, Heller GV, Landin RJ, Shaw LJ, Beller GA, Pasquale MJ, Haber SB.  Early Dipyridamole Tc99m-sestamibi SPECT imaging 2-4 days after acute myocardial infarction predicts in-hospital and post-discharge cardiac events:  comparison with submaximal exercise imaging.  Circulation 100:2060-2066, 1999.

Brown KA.  Prognosis in stable coronary artery disease.  In:  Zaret BL, Beller GA, eds., Nuclear Cardiology:  state-of-the-art and future directions (2nd edition).  Mosby Year Book, Inc., St. Louis, 1999.

Rodgers GP, Ayanian JZ, Balady G, Beasley JW, Brown KA, Gervino EV, Paridon S, Quinones M, Schlant RC.  American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/American College of Physicians Clinical Competency Statement on Stress Testing.   Circulation 102:1726-38, 2000.

Brown KA. Risk stratification: stress myocardial perfusion imaging.  In:  Rutherford JD.  5th Adult Clinical Cardiology Self-Assessment Program of the American College of Cardiology (ACCSAP V): Chronic coronary artery disease. American College of Cardiology, Bethesda, MD, 2002.

Brown KA.  Advances in nuclear cardiology: preoperative risk stratification.  J Nucl Cardiol 11:335-348, 2004.

Larose E, Ganz P,Reynolds HG, Dorbala S, DiCarli MF, Brown KA, Kwong RY.  Right ventricular dysfunction assessed by cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging predicts poor prognosis late after myocardial infarction.  J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 49:855-862, 2007.

Yan AT, Shayne AJ, Brown KA, Gupta SN, Chan CW, Luu TM, Di Carli MF, Reynolds HG, Stevenson WG, Kwong RY.  Characterization of peri-infarction zone with contrast-enhanced cardiac MRI is a powerful predictor of post-myocardial infarction mortality. Circulation, in press. 

Brown KA.  Nuclear Cardiology.  In: Theroux P. Acute Coronary Syndromes: A Companion to Braunwald’s Heart Disease.  Harcourt Publishing, in press.