Personal Profile
Dr. Spartera works as a Consultant Cardiologist at the Great Western Hospital and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance (OCMR) at the John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford, UK.
He is an international expert in multi-modality cardiovascular imaging and diagnosis of complex cardiac conditions including sources of ischaemic stroke, obesity-related cardiac conditions, root management of atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, arrhythmias, and heart failure. He is also lead for clinical services such as ‘stroke-cardiology’ and ‘valve clinic’ at the Great Western.
Video/telephone/face-to-face in an enthusiastic, empathetic, and compassionate fashion. Feedback from patients is excellent highlighting Dr Spartera’s pledge to always deliver a clear cardiology plan.
Dr Spartera obtained his PhD in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Oxford where he now leads his research programme to investigate abnormalities of the cardiac flow towards discovering novel mechanisms of cardioembolism and heart failure. He is also an investigator in LOSE-AF trial (NCT03713775): a Randomized Controlled Trial to investigate whether in older overweight/obese patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) weight loss can improve AF outcomes. His research is funded by NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and British Heart Foundation. Academic achievements and publications at https://www.rdm.ox.ac.uk/people/marco-spartera.
Specialities:
- Leaky or narrow heart valves, Valve disease. Dr Spartera assesses whether the valve needs a procedure/surgery or whether it needs specific medications. He will usually perform himself complex multi-modality imaging including transoesophageal echocardiography or TOE, dobutamine-stress echocardiography or DSE, transthoracic echocardiography or TTE, cardiac CT.
- Cardiac artery disease, chest pain, discomfort such as pressure, squeezing or heaviness. Feels like indigestion or a burning sensation, feels sharp, sudden and stabbing of the chest. discomfort/pain spread to the left/right arm or spread to the neck, jaw, back or stomach.
- Palpitations and atrial fibrillation (Dr Spartera works out the causes behind palpitations and arranges medications or interventions to tackle to root cause of the problem)
- Heart failure, shortness of breath and cardiomyopathies. Dr Spartera will perform echocardiograms and cardiac MRI as appropriate to work out mechanisms and causes of disease therefore producing a final plan.
- Blood clots, cardioembolic stroke, TIA, or systemic embolism. Dr Spartera works out the causes behind symptoms and arranges specific medications or interventions including PFO closure.
- Obesity-related cardiovascular health. Dr Spartera assesses the damages of obesity on the heart and makes plan to curb them as well as for prevention.
- Syncope and pre-syncope such as blackouts, faints, collapses, dizzy spells, fatigue, feeling sick, sweaty, light-headed.
- General cardiology queries. Dr Spartera looks after patients in acute cardiac unit, general cardiology ward, and outpatient clinics on a weekly basis.
