About Us: Awards

Steven P. Marso, MD, Receives P.A.D. Coalition’s

Best PAD Research Award in Vascular Interventions

The Peripheral Arterial Disease (P.A.D.) Coalition  presented the Coalition’s second annual Best P.A.D. Research Award in Vascular Interventions to Steven P. Marso, MD, at the organization’s Fifth Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.  The Best P.A.D. Research Award honors the work of investigators and acknowledges the creation of new clinical research relevant to the understanding and/or treatment of peripheral arterial disease.  

Dr. Marso is a Clinical Scholar at the Mid-America Heart Institute at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri.  He and his colleagues were recognized for their work on the research study, “Quantifying Improvements in Symptoms, Functioning, and Quality of Life After Peripheral Endovascular Revascularization,” published in the journal, Circulation (Circulation, Jrnl. of the AHA, Feb 6, 2007; 116: 569-575).  The study examined the extent to which peripheral endovascular revascularization improved the quality of life for most patients with PAD one year after the procedure.  Study co-authors include David M. Safley, MD; John A. House, MS; Steven B. Laster, MD; William C. Daniel, MD; and John A. Spertus, MD, MPH.

In a longitudinal follow-up study of 300 P.A.D. patients who had undergone peripheral endovascular revascularization from 2001 to 2004, Dr. Marso and colleagues assessed health status one year following the procedure.  Health status was quantified using the disease-specific Peripheral Artery Questionnaire and the generic Short Form-12 and the EuroQol5 Dimensions (EQ5D) questionnaire.  Clinical follow-up was attained in 99% of patients; health status assessments were made in 86%.  Mean Peripheral Artery Questionnaire summary scores improved significantly after revascularization from 31.19 to 62.27 at 1 year.  Generic health status scores also improved significantly.  For the majority of patients, significant and sustained improvements in symptoms, functioning and quality of life occurred after PER.

“P.A.D. is a significant disease burden for patients. Claudication greatly limits routine activities and decreases activity levels,” Dr. Marso said. “Our work establishes that endovascular revascularization improves health status in the majority of select patients with P.A.D. We look forward to future studies focused on further characterizing the benefit of vascular interventions in these patients,” Dr. Marso added.

"On behalf of the P.A.D. Coalition, we are delighted to present this prestigious award to Dr. Marso," said Timothy Murphy, M.D., Chair of the P.A.D. Coalition’s Science Committee and professor of diagnostic imaging at Brown University in Providence, RI.  “These findings provide superb evidence that clinical benefit of endovascular treatment, as defined by subjective quality of life testing, can be evaluated using patient-focused, standardized questionnaires,” said Dr. Murphy.

The Peripheral Arterial Disease (P.A.D.) Coalition is an alliance of leading health organizations, medical societies, and government agencies united to raise public and health professional awareness about lower extremity P.A.D.  Established in 2004, the P.A.D. Coalition is coordinated by the Vascular Disease Foundation (www.vdf.org), a national, not-for-profit section 501(c)(3) organization and is supported by the following national sponsors:  the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership; Cordis Endovascular, a division of Cordis Corporation; Abbott Vascular; AnGes, Inc.; AstraZeneca; Bard Peripheral Vascular; Baxter Healthcare; BioMedix; Cook, Inc; W.L. Gore & Associates; Medtronic; Novo Nordisk; Omron; and Summit Doppler.