Active clinical trials for "Heart Diseases"

Neutrophil hyperactivation has detrimental effects on cardiac tissue after injuries, leading to fibrosis lesions and cardiac dysfunction. It is now well-established that women present with different clinical symptoms in cardiovascular disease compared to men. A cardioprotective effect in women has been suggested in some studies including patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) and heart failure. Our hypothesis is that estrogen protects the hearts of female patients aged 18-45 with CHD. There is no information available as to the involvement of neutrophils in heart failure in females compared to male patients, and therefore this study will provide important information for both the CHD and neutrophil biology fields comparing NET activation in women and men with severe CHD.

The purpose of this study is to mesure the prevalence of severe sensory integration disorders in babies after one week of their heart surgery.

This study requires the consecutive enrollment of 60 patients following the first event of acute myocardial infarction, evaluating B-Cell Activating Factor (BAFF) and methylglyoxal (MGO) levels in the acute setting (pre-reperfusion) and 3 months after reperfusion.

Fontan Surgery is done for children with only one working lower chamber of the heart called the 'Single Ventricle'. This surgery involves making connections between the two big veins that drain oxygen deficient blood to the heart and the lung artery directly. Fontan patients may develop long-term complications such as reduced heart function or oxygen levels, increased pressure in the veins, liver or kidney problems etc. The reasons for these complications are poorly understood. The small blood vessels in the body or 'microcirculation' are tiny (can be seen only by microscope) and they supply food and oxygen to the tissues. Very little is known about what happens to the microcirculation in adult Fontan survivors . In this study the investigator want to understand why these adult Fontan survivors develop complications by looking at their microcirculation and comparing them with healthy people and those who were operated for other congenital heart diseases. The study will be conducted in East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre, Glenfield Hospital. Leicester.

Background: The prevalence of both senile cardiac amyloidosis (CA) and aortic stenosis (AS) markedly increases with age. Aortic stenosis increases left ventricular pressure overload. Cardiac deposits have been observed in AS and the amount of these deposits has been correlated to post-surgical outcome. As they are strong echocardiographic and cardiac MRI imaging similarities between CA and AS, the investigators hypothesized that the deposit observed in AS is transthyretin amyloid deposit. The investigators objective is to demonstrate that amyloid deposit is associated with poor outcomes following aortic stenosis surgical valve replacement. Materiel and methods: 180 patients with indication for surgical aortic valve replacement will be recruited prospectively and consecutively in 5 French centers. A replicative study will be performed in one Austrian center. Echocardiography, cardiac MRI and bone scintigraphy will be performed prior to surgery. During surgery, a basal LV septum biopsy will be collected for determination and quantification of interstitial deposits using specific staining which will be performed in a blind fashion. Clinical outcomes will be recorded during the hospitalization period following the surgery and at 1 year. Alive and re-hospitalization status will be determined. Patients will be classified according to the presence or not of amyloid deposits. Expected results and impact: This study will emphasize how pressure overload stress accelerates and magnifies amyloid deposition usually known to be related to cardiac aging process. It will develop reliable imaging tools and markers to detect cardiac amyloid deposition. Correlation between anatomopathologic analyses and the three different imaging technics will identify accurate imaging markers of CA. A risk stratification model based on amyloid deposits level for the clinical management of these patients will be created combining imaging and biological markers.

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a non-invasive, unique nuclear imaging technique that allows the evaluation of blood flow in the heart and provides information about the cell activity of specific organs such as the heart and brain. It also provides useful information for the management of patients with poor pumping function of the heart, heart failure, and coronary artery disease. A cardiac viability imaging looks at how the heart uses glucose (sugar) The imaging process determines areas of the heart that are alive (viable - using sugar) versus areas of the heart that are scar tissue (non-viable). F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is the radioactive substance used to determine myocardial viability. This nuclear imaging technique has been shown to be useful in directing management for patient care. The Ministry of Health recognizes the clinical utility of FDG PET imaging for myocardial viability assessment and other cancer indications. Optimizing the potential advantages of FDG PET in Ontario, will require characterization of the patient population, referral patterns, upstream and downstream resource utilization and patient outcomes. Therefore, registry studies are being undertaken to provide specific information about the utility of PET in these clinical situations in Ontario. The proposed registry will facilitate monitoring of the implementation of this limited technology and allow continued evaluation of practice patterns and outcomes. The University of Ottawa Heart Institute is the coordinating centre for this project with PET centres in London, Hamilton and Toronto also participating. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the utility of FDG PET viability imaging in the decision making process for patients with poor left ventricular function who may be candidates for revascularization and to study the downstream effect of the clinical management decisions. Patients meeting specific inclusion criteria will be eligible for this study.

The study team will use small pieces of human hearts which are removed as part of a required surgical procedure to study different objectives. One of the objective is how calcium ions pass through the membrane of heart cells in order to tell the heart cell how much force to contract with when the heart beats. Investigators will also study the proteins and RNA of these pieces to determine how the newborn heart cells control their force of contraction differently from adult heart cells. Investigators hypothesize that infant hearts have different regulation of calcium entry than adult hearts. The study team also wants to study combinations of 3D cardiac spheres with multiple environmental cues that can improve functional and metabolic maturation of Human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) and generate a more clinically relevant cell model.

In this prospective study, the investigators will enroll 154 children with arterial lines to determine the accuracy of pulse oximeters in children with darker skin pigmentation. Studies in adults suggest pulse oximeters may overestimate the true level of oxygenation in the blood as measured directly by co-oximetry. However, pediatric data are relatively limited. This study, which is funded by the FDA through the Stanford-UCSF (University of California San Francisco) Clinical Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) Program, will determine if the error/bias is associated with skin pigmentation and whether the error falls outside FDA standards. The broader purpose of the study is to work toward eliminating health disparities.

Multicenter, prospective, non-randomized, post-market clinical follow-up (PMCF) study to confirm and support the clinical safety and performance of Medical Device Regulations (MDR) with multivessel coronary disease requirements in all the CONSECUTIVE patients treated with (SUPRAFLEX CRUZ).

International, Multicenter, prospective, non-randomized, post-market clinical follow-up (PMCF) study to confirm and support the clinical safety and performance of Coroflex® ISAR NEO coronary stent system to meet EU Medical Device regulation (MDR) requirements in all the CONSECUTIVE patients treated with Coroflex® ISAR NEO coronary stent system sirolimus eluting stent.