Dr. Paolo Spada is a vascular surgeon who has been working at the Humanitas Research Hospital since the Institute was inaugurated in 1996. Dr. Spada joined Humanitas after receiving his degree in medicine from the Università degli Studi di Milano, where he specialized with Prof. Ugo Ruberti.
Dr. Spada collaborated in setting up the Vascular Surgery Unit as an assistant to his mentor, Prof. Alberto Arpesani, one of the most talented and experienced surgeons in thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic surgery. Under Prof. Arpesani’s guidance, Dr. Spada had the opportunity to practice in all fields of vascular surgery, including advanced extracorporeal circulation techniques for the aortic arch repair in deep hypothermia and left ventricular assistance devices in descending thoracic aorta replacement procedures.
In 2004, Dr. Spada joined the Vascular Surgery Unit 2, set up and led by Dr. Mariagrazia Bordoni, with whom he has been working since then as deputy for all the surgical activities of the Unit. Thanks to Dr. Bordoni, Dr. Spada has been able to grow in a climate of deep professional rapport and exchange based on technical excellence, a rigorous scientific approach, and an ethics of responsibility. He has developed an attention to relations with patients and their relatives, and a generous approach to all young colleagues, fellows and students that have attended the Unit throughout the years.
With approximately 2000 vascular interventions performed as first surgeon, including both open and endovascular aortic procedures for abdominal and thoracic aneurysms, carotid artery endoarterectomies, peripheral open and hybrid procedures, and hemodialytic access interventions, Dr. Spada has also gained experience in hospital quality improvement plans and Joint Commission accreditation surveys, as member of the Quality Committee of the Institute. He is also a member of the Società Italiana di Chirurgia Vascolare ed Endovascolare (SICVE) and the European Society for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (ESVS).
In 2014, Dr. Spada developed EVARplanning, an application for the endovascular aortic prosthesis configuration based on an original algorithm, which has achieved world-wide success within the vascular specialists community (1000 registered members, 10,000+ sessions from 100+ countries in 2015). He has participated in international workshops and meetings to introduce the app as a tool for endograft planning and has established collaborations with endograft and software companies for the integration of the new feature in sizing procedures. EVARplanning has recently been accepted to the final stage of BioUpper, a new startup acceleration platform for entrepreneurial ideas in the field of life sciences, funded by Novartis and Fondazione Cariplo, in collaboration with Humanitas and PoliHub, the business incubator of the Politecnico di Milano.
