Dr. Nelson B. Schiller is a cardiologist who specializes in using echocardiography (ultrasound images of the heart's movement) to diagnose and treat heart disease. He founded the UCSF Adult Echocardiography Laboratory and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic.
Schiller has played an integral role in the development of many diagnostic and treatment techniques, including transesophageal echocardiography (moving the ultrasound transducer into the esophagus to facilitate pictures of the heart without ribs or lungs in the way), Doppler pulmonary pressure determination (to diagnose pulmonary hypertension), myocardial contrast perfusion (to evaluate how well blood flows through heart muscle) and echocardiography phase imaging (to see whether both sides of the heart are working together). In the category of congenital heart disease, he is an expert in treating mitral and aortic valve diseases and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (thickening of the heart walls that can impede blood flow from one of the main chambers).
In collaboration with his colleagues, Schiller is involved in research on adult congenital heart disease, three-dimensional reconstruction of the heart, certain advanced echocardiographic techniques, coronary blood flow, exercise hemodynamics (the study of how the circulatory system, including the heart and blood vessels, responds when the heart pumps faster during exercise), myocardial perfusion, smoking-related cardiopulmonary disease and noninvasive evaluation of cardiac synchrony (the timing of heart ventricle contractions).
Schiller is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology.
A devotee of chamber music for 20 years, Schiller serves as program annotator for the Chancellor's Concert Series, which offers music to the UCSF community. He enjoys playing tennis with his wife on weekends.
