Walterr Klepetko

Dr. Klepetko is the outstanding specialist in  Thoracic surgery.

Specialization:

• Surgery

• Vascular surgery

• Heart surgery

• Thoracic surgery

Walter Klepetko was born in Vienna in 1955,  graduating to become a medical doctor in 1978. He is  a Professor of Thoracic Surgery and, since 2010, has  been Head of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at the  Department of Surgery, MedUni Vienna/Vienna  General Hospital. His special areas of expertise are  surgery for bronchial carcinoma, functional liver  diseases, pulmonary hypertension plus lung  transplantation and tracheal surgery. 

The father of two is a former president of the European Association for Cardio Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) and was the European representative on the board of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS). In 2014, he received the Grand Decoration of Honor for services to the Austrian Republic, in recognition of his medical and scientific achievements. In 2015, he was awarded the City of Vienna Prize for Medical Sciences. Klepetko states one of his major objectives as being to create constructive conditions to promote productive working. This includes establishing new, contemporary structures for surgery, which, in particular, take account of the challenges of increasing specialization while, at the same time, guaranteeing a broad base of training. Until 2018, Walter Klepetko headed up the internationally acclaimed lung transplant program at MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital, which he himself set up at the end of the 1980s and which went on to become one оf the largest centers in the world, with more than 100 procedures being performed annually. The Viennese surgeon and his team were recently the focus of public attention when they performed a lung transplant operation on Niki Lauda in the summer of 2018. His division is regarded as a national and international center of reference for complex thoracic procedures. 

Main specialization: 

➢ Lungs' cancer 

➢ Surgery for metastases 

➢ Lung transplant 

➢ Surgical treatment of pulmonary hypertension 

➢ Surgery of functional lung diseases

Membership in Austrian Communities: • 1984 Member of the Austrian Surgical Society • 1985 Austrian Society of the Gastrointestinal Tract • 1986 Austrian Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery • 1986 Austrian Pulmonary Society • 1987 Austrian Society of Cardiology