Renan Uflacker

Renan Uflacker (born 1949) is an American physician. Currently he is Professor and Director of Interventional Radiology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), in Charleston, South Carolina.

Since 1977, Uflacker has practiced vascular and interventional radiology, becoming professor and director of the division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology at MUSC in 1993. He attended medical school in his hometown of Porto Alegre, Brazil, earning his MD in 1974. After residency in diagnostic radiology and a fellowship in cardiovascular radiology, he settled in his hometown practicing vascular radiology at a private hospital and at the Hospital of the Catholic University, where he did extensive work in peripheral vascular diseases and gastrointestinal diseases. At that time he pursued a master’s degree in gastroenterology with the presentation of an original thesis. In the course of his career he has performed extensive work in peripheral diseases in balloon angioplasty, treatment of vascular blockages which included pioneer work with the publication of the first superior mesenteric angioplasty and the first portal vein angioplasty. He also became interested in gastrointestinal and liver diseases and portal hypertension, with work in gastrointestinal bleeding treatment by means of transcatheter embolization, and liver cancer treatment. After his arrival at MUSC, he performed pivotal new work in the United States in the area of mechanical thrombectomy,   and in 1995/1996 he initiated, in South Carolina and in the United States, the use of stent-grafts for the repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms. More recently he was part of a national trial for new covered biliary stents for biliary malignancies which resulted in the approval of the first covered stent for biliary application in United States.

Uflacker is currently developing a technique for filling aneurysm sacs with a polymer, working on a new dialysis graft with self-sealing ports, and participating in a long-term project related to the creation and growth of new vessels in limbs with lack of blood flow, a process known as angiogenesis.

Professional affiliations
Uflacker is a long-standing member of several specialty societies, which include the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), and a fellow of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE). He has been an invited lecturer and/or presenter at meetings and conferences nationally and internationally. His areas of interest are liver diseases and portal hypertension, as well as peripheral vascular diseases, such as the treatment of peripheral arterial and venous blockages, treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms with stent-grafts, and carotid artery disease stenting.

Uflacker has also authored and co-authored more than one hundred peer reviewed articles in medical journals and about 50 book chapters.