Prof. Lee is a clinical cardiologist specialising in cardiac imaging with particular interest in echocardiography. His main clinical and research interests are heart valve disease, heart failure, 3D and strain imaging echocardiography, and the application of echocardiography and 3D printing in guiding structural heart intervention and surgery. In patients with dilated cardiomyopathy undergoing mitral valve repair, he established the importance of distal anterior leaflet tethering in the mechanism of recurrence of functional mitral regurgitation. Based on his work, the echocardiographic parameter of distal anterior leaflet angle has been incorporated into the position statement from the ESC and the recommendations from the ASE on cardiovascular surgery and valvular heart disease. More recently, Prof. Lee and his group discovered the mechanistic link of mitral annular saddle shape with annular disjunction and progression of degenerative mitral regurgitation using 3D echocardiography.
Prof. Lee has published over 180 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Circulation, European Heart Journal, Journal of American College of Cardiology, Nature Cardiology Review, and Journal of American Society of Echocardiography. He is the editor and reviewer of over 10 peer-reviewed medical journals, and the coordinator of the Echocardiography Chapter of the Hong Kong College of Cardiology. He has been awarded numerous research awards including the ESC Young Investigator Award, the State Ministry of Education First-Class Award in Technology Advancement, the CUHK Research Excellence Award, the Hong Kong College of Physicians Distinguished Research Awards (3 times) and the Richard Yu Lectureship for his distinguished research achievement.