Clinical cardiac imaging applications with radiotracers
Frans Jozef Thomas Wackers (born 1939) is a Dutch American clinical cardiologist and research scientist known for his contributions to nuclear cardiology. In 1974, he explored a new way of visualizing heart disease. He pioneered using the radioisotope thallium-201 for heart imaging, which started a new cardiology sub-specialty, later called Nuclear Cardiology. Wackers was the director of the Cardiovascular Nuclear Imaging and Stress Laboratories at Yale School of Medicine for 22 years. In 2008, he became a Professor Emeritus at Yale University. On January 1, 2013, Wackers fully retired from clinical and scientific responsibilities.[1]
Early life
Wackers was born on May 29, 1939, in Echt, Limburg, a rural town in the south of the Netherlands. His father, Thomas F. J. Wackers, from Maasniel, Limburg, was a urologist-surgeon in The Hague. His mother, Miep Koopman, from Amsterdam, passed away at age 44 when Frans was 16 years old.[2]
In Limburg, Wackers saw the beginning of World War II and five years of German Nazi occupation. In January 1945, Frans as a young boy, also experienced the fierce fighting and bloody battle between British and German troops during Operation Blackcock in the Roermond Triangle, in the middle of which the Germans evacuated Frans' family.[2]
Education and positions held
After the liberation of the Netherlands from the Nazi occupation, his family moved in September 1945 to Amsterdam. Wackers attended elementary school in Amsterdam, High School (Jesuit Aloysius College) in The Hague, and Medical School at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).[1]
While a medical school student, Wackers began research in 1963 as a student-research-assistant in the UvA Anatomical Pathology Laboratory under the mentorship of Professor Jan Hampe. Frans' research involved the investigation of the microanatomy of the female mammary gland.In 1966, Wackers continued his research during a 6-month scholarship at the cancer center, Institut Gustave Roussy, in Paris France. Wackers' description of a histological localized bionecrosis in breast tissue was later recognized as an early description of apoptosis.[3]
In 1970, Wackers earned his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam. He graduated with an M.D. from the Amsterdam School of Medicine in the same year.[4]
From 1972 to 1974, Wackers pursued his Internal Medicine Residency at the Wilhelmina Gasthuis University Hospital in Amsterdam and subsequently continued with a Cardiology Fellowship at the same institution from 1974 to 1977.[5]
His career in the United States began in 1977 with the recruitment as an Assistant Professor by the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. Later, he was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine (1981–1984). He returned to Yale University School of Medicine and became a full Professor with tenure in Diagnostic Radiology and Medicine (Cardiology) in 1986. Wackers continued his clinical research and published more than 350 scientific publications in medical journals.[6]
The Evolution of Nuclear Cardiology
Wackers was a pioneer in exploring and advancing new clinical cardiac imaging applications with radiotracers, particularly thallium-201, for detecting coronary artery disease. In 1974, he was the first physician to administer the radioisotope thallium-201 to patients with acute heart disease. His 1976 publication with images of patients with acute heart attacks contributed to the widespread acceptance of clinical thallium -201 imaging. He strongly advocated digitizing and quantifying cardiac images and standardization of imaging protocols.[7]
Wackers was involved with the clinical introduction of new radiopharmaceuticals labeled with technetium-99m (sestamibi and tetrofosmin); the transitioning from planar imaging to three-dimensional imaging with Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography (SPECT). In 1993, along with a core group of clinical investigators, he founded the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC). He established the Certification Board of Nuclear Cardiology (CBNC) in 1996 and the Intersocietal Commission for Accreditation of Nuclear Laboratories (ICANL) in 1997.[8]
Wackers, F. J.; Sokole, E. B.; Samson, G. (1 July 1976). "Value and limitations of thallium-201 scintigraphy in the acute phase of myocardial infarction". The New England Journal of Medicine. 295 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1056/NEJM197607012950101. ISSN0028-4793. PMID1272283.
