Prof. Mark Spence

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About

Prof. Mark Spence MB BCh BAO (Honours) MD FRCP.

Education & Experience

Prof. Mark Spence graduated with honours in Medicine from Queens University Belfast in 1995 and progress to Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh) in 1998.

He trained in cardiology in Belfast and then completed subspecialty training in congenital heart disease as a fellow in the inaugural Adult Congenital Heart Disease programme at Guys & St Thomas’ and the Royal Brompton Hospital, London.

His MD thesis was awarded by Queens University Belfast in 2002. He then completed a fellowship in interventional cardiology at The Royal Jubilee Hospital, British Columbia, Canada before taking up a consultant cardiology post in 2007 at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast Trust. He joined Mater Private Network in November 2021.

Special Interests

Prof. Spence has expertise in the broad range of interventional cardiology with subspecialty interest in adult congenital, complex coronary and structural intervention. As a consultant in Belfast, he led the adult congenital interventional programme, and co-initiated the leading transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) programme performing the first implants in Ireland in 2008.

He also developed the very successful structural interventional programme including mitral edge to edge repair, paravalvar leak closure, left atrial appendage occlusion and patent foramen ovale closure. He was clinical lead for cardiology and structural heart disease for 7 years. He also fully participated in the Northern Ireland primary PCI service and coronary intervention programme.

Clinical Research

Prof. Spence is an active researcher and has been an investigator in many interventional clinical research studies.

He has been involved in clinical trials using new transcatheter devices, including the sapien 3, portico, evolut and lotus CE marking trial, the landmark NOBLE trial and practice changing PFO REDUCE study. He publishes regularly in the field of interventional cardiology and has over 100 peer reviewed papers and book chapters.

He is a trainer and proctor for several TAVI devices and supervises MD students. He is a Visiting Professor to the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences, School of Biomedical Science, Ulster University since April 2020.

He regularly participates as faculty at international meetings and has performed many live cases transmitted from Belfast to interventional meetings including the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Amsterdam, the British Cardiac Interventional meeting in London, CRT in Washington DC and TCT, USA.

He joined Mater Private Network in November 2021 as an interventional cardiologist with remit to augment and lead the structural heart programme and participate in the research activities of the Cardiovascular Research Institute.

Catheterization Laboratory trailer, Mater Private Network Heart and Vascular Centre