Brajesh Lal

Brajesh K. Lal, born in 1963 in Varanasi, India and of Indian origin, is an American surgeon, and an expert in vascular disease, particularly the prevention and treatment of stroke and venous disease.

Brajesh earned his graduate degree at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He spent two years in the Fogarty Research Fellowship program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. After his fellowship at NIH, he completed his surgical residency and vascular surgical fellowship at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

He is a tenured Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Maryland and Professor of Neurology at Mayo Clinic. He holds additional appointments at the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland and George Mason University. He founded and currently directs the multi-specialty Center for Vascular Research and the NIH Vascular Imaging Core Facility at the University of Maryland. He has been elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery and Distinguished Fellow of the American Venous Forum.

Brajesh's contributions are focused on two major vascular illnesses that affect millions of patients every year and that are major causes of death and disability: carotid artery disease and venous disease.

Center for Vascular Research

The Center for Vascular Research, directed by Brajesh Lal, is driven by a visionary goal to enhance vascular health through innovation, creativity, and discovery. With a mission to deploy cutting-edge science for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of vascular disease, the center actively engages diverse stakeholders and educates the next generation of clinician-scientists. Through basic discoveries, translation into clinical protocols, and rigorous testing of interventions, the center strives for excellence in clinical and translational research. Over the past decade, it has garnered continuous support from federal, industry, foundation, and private resources. Situated at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore VA Medical Center, and George Mason University, the center utilizes unique resources and brings together a highly qualified, interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals. This team, comprising experts from various fields, ensures a comprehensive approach to addressing the broad spectrum of vascular disease. Upholding high-quality standards and data integrity, the center provides exceptional care to patients participating in over 40 active protocols, marking a commitment to advancing vascular research and patient well-being.

Carotid disease and cognitive-mobility dysfunction

His research on how progressive narrowing of the carotid artery reduced brain perfusion has led to the discovery of cognitive and mobility dysfunction as new, previously unsuspected morbidities resulting from carotid artery disease. These findings are leading to a shift on how this disease is viewed. Even without causing a stroke, the carotid disease leads to chronic disabilities that impact quality of life. Since carotid blockages affect 5 – 10% of all older adults, these newly discovered problems affect a very large and vulnerable group of people. He delivered the Clemens Lecture at Yale School of Medicine on this topic. He is now conducting clinical trials to test whether medications, exercise interventions, and surgical correction of the blockage can reverse these morbidities.

Carotid disease and stroke

His research on carotid artery disease contributed to the introduction of minimally invasive carotid artery stenting as an alternative to surgery in selected patients at risk for developing a stroke. He has participated in writing the guidelines that are used for treating carotid artery disease in the US. He is now leading the world's largest randomized clinical trial to help determine whether blockages in the carotid artery are best treated with medications or with surgery. This trial is being conducted across 170 medical centers in the United States, Canada, Israel, Spain, and Australia.

He has recently introduced artificial intelligence algorithms to detect geometric and tissue characteristics of plaques building up within carotid arteries to identify patients with a high risk for future strokes. This research will also identify patients with a low risk of stroke who can be spared unnecessary surgery.

Venous disease

His research on venous hemodynamics has led to the discovery that increasing venous blood flow through exercise interventions can accelerate thrombus resolution and prevent chronic post-thrombotic syndrome in patients with acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT). He is currently utilizing artificial intelligence methodologies to discover new risk factors for DVT using information from over 9 million hospitalized patients. This is one of the first applications of deep learning techniques in evaluating venous disease.

COVID-19 pandemic

Through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he has been evaluating the impact of disruptions in non-COVID-related healthcare services on long-term outcomes on non-COVID illnesses. The goal was to help design informed solutions for the recovery period. This research has identified a large and unsuspected deficit in diagnoses of new cancers, which has raised concerns for a future epidemic of late-stage cancers in the coming years. The analytic approach used in these studies can now be replicated by any country, individual states within the US, free-standing healthcare systems, or other hospitals where databases are available. These investigations have informed the VA National Surgical Office and the results have already impacted their decision-making at a national level.

CREST Trial

The CREST trial, initiated under Brajesh Lal's leadership, examined the efficacy and safety of carotid artery stenting compared to carotid endarterectomy for the treatment of carotid artery disease. This landmark study contributed significantly to the understanding of treatment options for patients at risk of stroke due to carotid artery blockages. The trial's findings and outcomes have influenced medical practice and guidelines for the management of carotid artery disease.

CREST-2 Trial

Building on the success of the CREST trial, Brajesh Lal is currently leading the CREST-2 trial, which represents another milestone in vascular research. This ambitious multicenter trial is designed to address critical questions regarding the management of carotid artery disease. CREST-2 aims to determine whether medical management alone or medical management combined with carotid revascularization (either stenting or endarterectomy) is the superior treatment strategy for preventing stroke in patients with carotid artery stenosis.

CREST-2 Registry (C2R)

C2R is an effort to ensure that high quality operators are performing carotid artery stenting at centers with adequate resources across the United States. For this purpose, a group of physicians have come together to form a Management and Steering committee that will oversee the Registry. Information pertaining to the diagnosis, indications, procedural details and outcomes of carotid artery stenting will be reviewed to credential individual stentors and centers to continue to perform this procedure.

Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis: Cognitive Function and Plaque Correlates (ACCOF-1)

This study revealed that asymptomatic carotid stenosis has a negative impact on cognitive function. Furthermore, it introduced a novel 3D ultrasound technology/technique designed to assess carotid plaque morphology, including its geometry and tissue composition. To measure microembolization rates to the middle cerebral artery, Transcranial Doppler (TCD) was employed. Additionally, TCD was utilized in conjunction with breath-holding to quantify cerebrovascular reactivity

Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis: Cognitive Function and Plaque Correlates – 2 (ACCOF-2)

ACCOF-2 is a clinical study that focuses on patients with high-grade stenosis (>70%) of the carotid artery. The study involves an initial assessment of both cognitive and physical functions in these patients at baseline. Afterward, patients undergo revascularization, and their cognitive and physical functions are reassessed to evaluate the impact of the intervention

Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis: Cognitive Function and Plaque Correlates - Exercise Intervention (ACCOF-EX)

ACCOF-EX is a clinical study focused on patients with moderate asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis (>50%). The study involves assessing the cognitive and physical functions of these patients following a 12-week aerobic exercise and balance training program.

Brajesh is a past president of the American Venous Forum(AVF). He is a founding member of the South Asian American Society for Vascular Surgeons (SAAVS) and is a past president of the society. He was the program director of the second oldest vascular fellowship training program in the United States at Rutgers University and has trained over 100 vascular surgeons. His research Center has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Veterans Affairs (VA) Research Department for the past 15 years, where he has trained over 100 vascular researchers. He has published over 400 manuscripts, abstracts, and book chapters. He currently serves on the executive board of the Eastern Vascular Society (EVS), and has chaired several Vascular Guidelines for the Society for Vascular Surgery. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and has received the Faculty Research Award from the American College of Surgeons.