Profile of Arthur J. Moss submitted by Submitted by Paul J. Wang, MD, FHRS, CCDS

Dr. Moss received his undergraduate education at Yale College and his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He received his post-graduate training at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. Dr. Moss has served on the faculty at the University of Rochester School of Medicine since 1962 and is currently Professor of Medicine.

Arthur J. Moss, MD, Distinguished Scientist.

Dr. Moss has been principal investigator for numerous studies funded by the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute, including studies on the follow-up of acute coronary heart attacks, long QT syndrome, silent ischemia, and post-coronary risk stratification. He has served on numerous editorial boards and currently serves at the editor-in-chief for the Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology. In addition to his professional career, Dr. Moss is most proud of his family, which includes his wife, three children, and nine grandchildren.

In a career spanning five decades, Dr. Moss has made some of the most important advances in our field. Among his over 550 publications are seminal contributions in electrophysiology. Very few individuals have made such broad-ranging contributions to cardiovascular medicine and electrophysiology as Dr. Moss. His work on Long QT syndrome has formed the basis of our knowledge of the field. Dr. Moss’ work in the role of implantable devices in the prevention of death, sudden death, and heart failure is unrivaled.

Dr. Moss has made some of the most important discoveries affecting the care of patients with Long QT syndrome.  Beginning with his report in 1971 of unilateral cervicothoracic sympathetic ganglionectomy for treatment of this syndrome, Dr. Moss’ work has included many of the key findings of the field.  With Dr. Peter Schwartz and others, Dr. Moss started the prospective international study of Long QT syndrome in 1985. This study would provide many of the most important insights into the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of this syndrome. His 1990 paper in Circulation defined many of the electrocardiographic features of Long QT syndrome that we accept as dogma today. His study published in 1991 in Circulation demonstrated the role of left cardiac sympathetic denervation in the therapy of congenital Long QT syndrome. His 1991 study of 328 families with Long QT syndrome provided the most extensive familial analysis performed at that time. In 1991, his study defined the role of pacing in this syndrome, a key intervention that remains part of clinical management two decades later.

His collaborative work has provided some of the most important insights in the genetics of Long QT syndrome and the basis of arrhythmogenesis. With his colleague Dr. Zareba, he was the first to describe T wave alternans in Long QT syndrome. His 1995 paper in Circulation has become the standard describing electrocardiographic features of different types of Long QT syndrome based on genetic classification and provided the most comprehensive analysis of the risk of cardiac events in family members with Long QT syndrome.

In 1997, he and his group reported the role of lidocaine and tocainide for the treatment of patients with sodium channel gene mutation, the first gene-specific therapy of its kind. With Dr. Rashba and his colleagues, his paper on the arrhythmic risk of pregnancy in Long QT syndrome defined the obstetric care of these patients today. Dr. Moss’ 1999 report comparing the clinical and genetic factors related to cardiac events associated with loud noise versus swimming formed our understanding regarding triggers in patients with Long QT syndrome. In 2001, he was first to describe altered atrial, atrioventricular, and ventricular conduction in patients with the Long QT syndrome caused by the rKPQ SCN5A sodium channel gene mutation.

The work by Dr. Moss and the International Long QT Prospective Registry in 2003 provided a detailed analysis of the relationship between age and gender and arrhythmic risk. His collective work on Long QT syndrome is the most extensive by any investigator in the field and truly is responsible for our understanding of this important clinical entity.

Dr. Moss has dedicated his life to the prevention of sudden cardiac death. He studied ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death in the setting of myocardial infarction and left ventricular dysfunction since the beginning of his career. Starting with his studies of ventricular premature beats following acute myocardial infarction, he made enormous discoveries regarding the prognosis and treatment of ventricular arrhythmias. His 1979 paper in Circulation was one of the earliest examinations of the prognostic implications of ventricular ectopic beats. Recognizing the importance and enormity of the problem of sudden cardiac death, his 1980 article in Annual Review of Medicine, outlined the challenges of predicting and preventing sudden cardiac death.

Dr. Moss’ Multicenter Post-Infarction Research Group played a critical role in advancing our understanding of cardiovascular events following acute myocardial infarction. In 1988, Dr. Moss published his findings of the effect of diltiazem on mortality and reinfarction after myocardial infarction in the New England Journal of Medicine. With FDA approval of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in 1985, Dr. Moss designed the first Multicenter automatic defibrillator implantation trial (MADIT) six short years later, ushering in a new era of so-called primary prevention indications for ICDs.

Dr. Moss was part of the original American Heart Association Task Force on Automatic External Defibrillation led by Dr. Myron Weisfeldt, leading to the concept of Public access defibrillation. He reported in 1996 the results of the first MADIT study, demonstrating that the implantable cardioverter defibrillator was capable of decreasing mortality in a primary prevention population. In 1998, Dr. Moss and his group published data regarding the cost effectiveness of ICD therapy based on the MADIT study. In 2002, he publishedthe results of the second MADIT study in the New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrating a significant mortality benefit for ICD therapy in patients with coronary artery disease and reduced ejection fraction without the need for electrophysiological study. This landmark trial was critical in providing a strategy to prevent sudden death in a population without prior sustained ventricular tachycardia.

There have been numerous additional publications from the MADIT II study, adding to our understanding of sudden death in this population. A study by Wilber et al. examined the benefit of ICD therapy in relation to the time of prior myocardial infarction. Berkowitsch et al. examined the role of heart rate turbulence in predicting ventricular arrhythmia occurrence. Dr. Moss was co-author of numerous other studies that have examined the effect of statins, cigarette smoking, and beta-blockers on outcomes in this population. In 2009, in a landmark study that Dr. Moss designed and led, the MADIT CRT trial demonstrated that cardiac-resynchronization therapy prevents the occurrence of heart-failure events and mortality. 

Dr. Moss’s numerous contributions to medicine have been recognized with awards that have included the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry Arthur Kornberg Research Award, the Rochester Academy of Medicine Distinguished Kaiser Award, the New York Academy of Medicine Glorney-Raisbeck Award for outstanding research, the 2009 Venice Arrhythmias Golden Lion Award for outstanding teaching, and the prestigious University of Rochester Hutchison Award.

Very few individuals have made such enormous contributions to the field of electrophysiology as Dr. Moss. He has truly transformed the care of hundreds of thousands of individuals and added significantly to the scientific body of knowledge.