Domenico Corrado"Doctor Honoris Causa" for his research
25.11.2025
Domenico Corrado, a Professor of Cardiology at the University of Padua and Director of the Cardiology Clinic at the University Hospital of Padua, has been awarded the prestigious title of "Doctor Honoris Causa" by Semmelweis University, Hungary's leading university. This recognition was bestowed upon him for his significant scientific contributions to the early diagnosis and prevention of sudden death in young athletes.
Thanks to his thirty-year research into genetic cardiac muscle diseases, Domenico Corrado has developed effective preventive strategies, such as systematic electrocardiographic screening, which have drastically reduced mortality among athletes in the Veneto region and beyond. The early diagnosis and cardiovascular screening protocols he has studied have been adopted in several countries, including the United States.
"This prestigious international academic recognition - Corrado specified - is the result of over thirty years of scientific research at the University of Padua in the field of early diagnosis of genetic cardiac muscle diseases that pose a risk of arrhythmic cardiac arrest in young people and athletes. The research outcomes have enabled the development and refinement of effective preventive strategies, such as systematic electrocardiographic screening of the young athlete population, which is essential to safeguarding safety in sports practice and saving the lives of athletes at high cardiovascular risk. Mortality among competitive athletes in the Veneto region, who undergo annual pre-participation cardiovascular evaluation, has been drastically reduced by 90% over the past few decades, thanks to the timely diagnosis of potentially fatal diseases. The early diagnosis and cardiovascular screening protocols developed and applied in Italy have thus transcended national borders and have been adopted not only by other European nations but also by the United States".
The Hungarian university that conferred the honorary doctorate on Professor Corrado is named after the hungarian physician Ignác Semmelweis, who went down in medical history as "the saviour of mothers," for his insight that simply washing hands could protect the health of postpartum women admitted to his obstetrics ward. This simple act allowed lives to be saved by preventing puerperal sepsis, which, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, represented a true epidemic with very high post-partum mortality rates.
