Dr Joana Alcada da Costa

Sub-specialties: Respiratory Medicine, Intensive Care Medicine, Sleep and Ventilation.

02036532006

Overview

Dr Alçada da Costa is a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine, with particular expertise in acute and chronic respiratory failure as well as sleep medicine.

About Dr Joana Alcada da Costa

Dr. Joana Alçada Costa is a Consultant Physician in Respiratory Medicine and Intensive Care based at the Royal Brompton Hospital, the largest specialist heart and lung centre in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. She is committed to delivering exceptional, patient-centred care to those facing life-threatening conditions.

She is experienced in managing all respiratory conditions and specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory failure patients and sleep disorders, bringing comprehensive expertise to complex and challenging cases.

Dr. Alçada completed her specialist postgraduate training in Respiratory Medicine, General Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine in King’s College Hospital, St Thomas Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital and University College London Hospitals.

In 2014, Dr. Alçada was awarded a research fellowship in lung repair and regeneration in the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London and went on to complete a PhD on The Role Of Retinoic Acid In The Repair Of The Human Alveolus. Alongside her clinical commitments, she maintains a strong interest in research within the field of lung injury and repair. She holds an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer post at Imperial College London, where she supervises Bsc students and collaborates in the delivery of national and international clinical trials.

Dr Alçada is active in clinical education and research. She has led clinical research projects looking to improve further understanding and outcomes for patients with respiratory and critical illness. Her focus of scientific research is on lung injury and repair pathways in human models using human precision lung cut slice culture. With this technique, she has explored how specific pathways important in embryonic development, such as retinoic acid metabolism (RA), have the potential induce regeneration of the human lung. This could lead to the development of disease-modifying therapies that can repair and restore lung function in diseases such as emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis and ARDS.She has published various articles and presented and national and international conferences.

She contributes broadly to medical education. Besides supervising undergraduate students during their Bsc year, she regularly teaches on clinical postgraduate courses.

Areas of Expertise

Miss Joana Alcada da Costa commonly treats:

Breathlessness and cough
Respiratory infections
Sleep disorders – sleep apnoea, obesity hypoventilation, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome
Asthma
Bronchitis
COPD
Smoking-related lung disease
Ventilation and weaning from ventilation
ECMO
Pre-operative respiratory optimisation / assessment
Post-intensive care disorders

She offers the following tests and treatments:

Sleep studies
Lung function
CPAP and NIV
Acute and chronic ventilation

Additional Information

Dr Joana Alcada da Costa holds the following qualifications: PhD MRCP FFICM

She is an active member of:

Royal College of Physicians
British Thoracic Society
European Respiratory Society
Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine
Intensive Care Society
European Society of Intensive Care Medicine

She currently holds clinical posts at:

Consultant in Respiratory Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine, Welbeck, London
Consultant in Intensive Care and Respiratory Medicine - Royal Brompton Hospital (NHS)
Consultant in Intensive Care and Respiratory Medicine - Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals Specialist Care (Private)

Research Highlights

Perez-Guzman PN, Knock E, Imai N, Rawson T, Santoni CN, Alcada J, Whittles LK, Thekke Kanapram D, Sonabend R, Gaythorpe KAM, Hinsley W, FitzJohn RG, Volz E, Verity R, Ferguson NM, Cori A, Baguelin M. Epidemiological drivers of transmissibility and severity of SARS-CoV-2 in England. Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 17;14(1):4279. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-39661-5.
Garfield BE, Bianchi P, Arachchillage DJ, Caetano F, Desai S, Doyle J, Hernandez Caballero C, Doyle AM, Mehta S, Law A, Jaggar S, Kokosi M, Molyneaux PL, Passariello M, Naja M, Ridge C, Alçada J, Patel B, Singh S, Ledot S. A Comparison of Long-Term Outcomes in Patients Managed With Venovenous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation in the First and Second Waves of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United Kingdom. Crit Care Med. 2023 Aug 1;51(8):1064-1073. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000005864. Epub 2023 Apr 5. PMID: 37276353; PMCID: PMC10335603.
Mallia P, Meghji J, Wong B, Kumar K, Pilkington V, Chhabra S, Russell B, Chen J, Srikanthan K, Park M, Owles H, Liew F, Alcada J, Martin L, Coleman M, Elkin S, Ross C, Agrawal S, Gardiner T, Bell A, White A, Hampson D, Vithlani G, Manalan K, Bramer S, Martin Segura A, Kucheria A, Ratnakumar P, Sheeka A, Anandan L, Copley S, Russell G, Bloom CI, Kon OM. Symptomatic, biochemical and radiographic recovery in patients with COVID-19. BMJ Open Respir Res. 2021 Apr;8(1):e000908.
Ng-Blichfeldt JP, Alçada J, Montero MA, Dean CH, Griesenbach U, Griffiths MJ, Hind M. Deficient retinoid-driven angiogenesis may contribute to failure of adult human lung regeneration in emphysema. Thorax. 2017;72(6):510–521.
Poobalasingam T, Salman D, Li H, Alçada J, Dean CH. Imaging the lung: the old ways and the new. Histology and Histopathology. 2017;32(4):325–337.

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