Colomba Falcone

Professor Colomba Falcone has been the Head of the Cardiology Unit at the Istituto di Cura Città di Pavia since 2007 and an Associate Professor of Cardiology at the University of Pavia, where she teaches courses in Cardiovascular Diseases.

She earned her medical degree from the University of Pavia in 1975, where she also completed her specialization in Cardiovascular Diseases in 1978 and later specialized in Sports Medicine at the University of Milan in 1981.

From 1975 to 2002, Professor Falcone was a researcher at the University of Pavia and became an Associate Professor of Cardiology from 2002 to 2007. During the same period, from 1978 to 2007, she was the Head of the Ergometry Laboratory at the IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, affiliated with the University of Pavia. Additionally, she served as the Director of the Interdepartmental Research Center for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIRMC).

Her primary fields of expertise include Cardiology and Sports Medicine, with a specific focus on cardiovascular diseases and the clinical, molecular, and genetic aspects of ischemic heart disease, silent myocardial ischemia, and vasospastic angina. Her work is primarily concentrated on clinical research, where she has achieved significant results.

For instance, she was the first to use pulp stimulation (pulp test) in cardiology, demonstrating the existence of a higher pain threshold in patients with silent myocardial ischemia, who also showed, for the first time, higher levels of plasma endorphins. Professor Falcone also documented the different expression of peripheral benzodiazepine receptors between subjects with and without symptoms during myocardial ischemia. She is a leading expert in exercise-induced myocardial ischemia, having managed an Ergometry Laboratory where she conducted stress tests for patients on the waiting list for coronary transplantation. Notably, she was the first researcher to document and publish findings on coronary spasm during exercise.

The outcomes of her research are reflected in an extensive bibliography, with over 300 publications in national and international journals, such as the Journal of Cardiovascular Disorders and the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. She is also the national representative for the Italian Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Association (CFS) and the Italian Heart Failure Patients Association (AISC).