Physician Profile

Kenneth W. Mahaffey, MD

Education:
Medical School:
University of Washington School of Medicine, MD, 1989

Residency:
University of Arizona, Internal Medicine, 1989-1993

Fellowship:
Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina, Cardiology, 1993-1996

Clinical Interests/Specialties:
Acute coronary care, acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina, congestive heart failure

Research:
Dr. Mahaffey is also a faculty member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). His primary research focus is the design and conduct of multicenter clinical trails and analyses of important clinical cardiac issues using large patient databases. Clinical research interests include the evaluation of new antiplatelet and antithrombin therapies in the management of the acute coronary syndromes (ACS), the study of agents targeted to protect the myocardium during reperfusion therapy for acute myocardial infarction, the analysis of cardiac enzyme elevations in patients with acute coronary syndromes, the identification of risk factors for stroke in patients with acute coronary syndromes, and the study of thrombolysis-related intracranial hemorrhage. He has been the principal or co-principal investigator for the AMISTAD, ATBAT and CARDINAL trials. He was one of the key leaders for the SYNERGY trial.

Dr. Mahaffey is also interested in the methodology of clinical trials. Current research activities include standardization of the definition of myocardial infarction used in clinical trials and the adjudication of suspected clinical endpoint events in large multicenter studies. He has developed efficient strategies to classify clinical endpoints and is the Director of the Clinical Events Classification (CEC) group at the DCRI and has served as the CEC Chairman for multiple trials. The DCRI CEC group has performed the clinical event adjudication in many of the prominent trials in cardiology in the past decade.

He has authored and co-authored multiple peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and editorials. He is a fellow in the American College of Cardiology and a member of the American Heart Association. He is a reviewer for several cardiology journals and is an associate editor for the American Heart Journal.

He also serves as a vice-chair on the Duke Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Hospital Affiliations:
Duke University Medical Center