Elaine Tseng, M.D., FACS

Biography

Dr. Elaine Tseng is Professor of Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Her clinical expertise includes minimally invasive aortic valve replacement with Y-root enlargement, Ross operation, aortic surgery including ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm repairs, valve sparing aortic root replacements, structural heart disease—transcatheter aortic valve replacement and transcatheter edge-to-edge repair, and multi-arterial coronary artery bypass grafting.

Dr. Tseng grew up in North Carolina where she attended the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. She was a National Merit Scholar. She completed her undergraduate Bachelor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a GPA 5.0. She earned her medical degree at Harvard Medical School and was one of three recipients per year of the Virginia A. Linnane Scholarship. Dr. Tseng underwent her general surgery training at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she received the George D. Zeidema Surgery Award and the Vincent L. Gott Cardiac Surgery Award. She was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and was awarded the Nina Braunwald Research Fellowship Award from The Thoracic Surgery Foundation for Research and Education. She also received the Hawley H. Seiler MD Award from the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association. Dr. Tseng underwent her clinical and advanced training in cardiothoracic surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

After completing her education and training, she joined the cardiac surgery staff at the UCSF and SFVA Medical Centers in 2002. Her academic research interests over the past 20 years have involved biomechanics, fluid dynamics, and computational simulations of aortic root surgery, including aortic stenosis, transcatheter aortic valves, Ross operation, ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (aTAA) and dissection. She has been NIH R01 funded surgeon-scientist investigating the biomechanics of ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms to determine better predictors of type A dissection than maximum diameter. She is currently funded through a VA Merit award to investigate the impact of aTAA biomechanics on dissection, rupture, and all-cause mortality. She is the UCSF/SFVA site-principal investigator for the multi-institutional international randomized trial of treatment of ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms, TITAN trial, early surgery vs surveillance for 5.0-5.4cm aneurysms. She has published >100 scientific papers and book chapters. Dr. Tseng serves on the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Workforce on New Technology, American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) Clinical Practice Standards Committee. She is on the Board of Directors of the Heart Valve Society, and the Thoracic Surgery Foundation. She is the Vice-Chair of the Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia Council of the American Heart Association and is Senior Editor in the Editorial Board of Annals of Thoracic Surgery. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Heart Association and is certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.