Active clinical trials for "Cardiomyopathies"

There are some adults with skeletal muscle weakness (called "myopathy") and heart muscle weakness (called "cardiomyopathy") who have low blood levels of a compound called carnitine as a cause of their problems. Carnitine is very important to energy production in muscles. In fact, there are reports of some people with carnitine deficiency who have developed myopathy and cardiomyopathy that was completely reversed with carnitine treatment. The main objective of our project is to determine the number of patients who have carnitine deficiency as a cause of their myopathy and cardiomyopathy. The investigators will be measuring carnitine levels in 1000 patients with cardiomyopathy and will describe the specific features in all the study patients to see if there are any trends that may help us predict which patients with muscle weakness are at risk of developing low carnitine levels. The investigators will be treating patients with low carnitine levels with carnitine and observing them to see if their cardiomyopathy and their muscle weakness improve. Knowing the exact percentage of myopathy and cardiomyopathy patients with carnitine deficiency may allow for screening of patients in a cheap and targeted way to treat the serious complication of this condition, including heart failure and sudden death.

The purpose of this research study is to further establish the diagnostic use of magnetocardiography (MCG) in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The use of MCG has not been extensively studied in these patients. This pilot study will serve to further characterize abnormalities found on MCG in comparison to patients without hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Additionally, the study will be used to understand whether MCG has any additional diagnostic utility in offering clinicians insight on the patient's disease state, thereby aiding in the development of treatment plans. This research study is designed to test the effectiveness of the investigational use of magnetocardiography in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The device itself has been approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This will be a cross-sectional, observational study. Null hypothesis: There is no difference in the amount of extracellular volume (ECV or scarring) in the hearts of patients with heart failure as compared to control subjects. Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle has become too weak to work properly. It is associated with an increase in the amount of connective tissue (collagen) which replaces dead heart muscle cells (scarring). Currently a biopsy of the muscle is the only way to measure the amount of scarring. This is invasive and rarely done in children. Because of this, it is difficult to measure the amount of scarring in a particular patient or disease process, which is important for improving our understanding and treatment of the disease. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive imaging tool which is routinely used to look at areas of local scarring in heart muscle. Because the scarring is so widespread in paediatric patients, we have not been able to use this method previously. Now new imaging techniques allow us to look at widespread scarring but these have not yet been validated in children. We plan to use late gadolinium enhancement (T1 mapping) to measure the amount of scarring in patients with heart failure (we have evidence that their heart biopsies show increased amounts of scar tissue) and children having MRI scans for other reasons. We will use measures of function including echocardiography and 6 minute walk test to compare to the amount of scarring. This will help us to know whether the amount of scarring will be clinically useful. We will look at the amount of various proteins in the blood of patients and control subjects which are related to the scarring and cell death processes. We already use blood tests to monitor heart failure and these tests may help us to refine our testing and improve timing of treatment (e.g. transplantation). This study will help us to design further research in this field.

Primary objective and endpoint is the analysis of the long-term course of lyso-Gb3 and its clinical correlation to the progression of the cardiomyopathy in N215S-Fabry patients.

The objective of this study is to determine whether myocardial contrast echocardiography in patients with cardiomyopathy (HCM) can detect resting hypo-perfusion due to fibrosis or stress induced perfusion defects due to associated abnormalities in intramyocardial arteries and the microcirculation. A secondary aim will be to determine whether abnormalities in perfusion are associated with either severity of symptoms (chest pain and dyspnea), presence of arrhythmias, and regional function of the septum.

This study will evaluate the prognostic utility of novel ECG markers of electrical instability in patients with cardiomyopathy.

This study is an observational study to determine predictors of sudden cardiac death or appropriate ICD therapy in patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy. Patients will be followed for 36 months for the occurrence of sudden cardiac death

It has been suggested that mitochondrial dysfunction might play a role in the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy. From animal studies, it has been suggested that an altered PPAR and PGC1 expression is involved in the reduced cardiac mitochondrial function, however human data on cardiac mitochondrial function and PPAR regulation is scarce. The latter is due to the fact that there is no validated measurement for assessing cardiac mitochondrial function non-invasively in vivo. It has been suggested that measuring PCr/ATP ratio with 31P-MRS in the heart reflects cardiac mitochondrial function. However, so far no direct validation of this method has been performed. The aim of this study will be to validate in vivo 31P-MRS with ex vivo measurements of mitochondrial function. To this end, the hypothesis is that in vivo 31P-MRS is a valid method for measuring cardiac mitochondrial function when compared with ex vivo mitochondrial respirometry.

Investigators aim to assess changes in exercise capacity and quality of life after septal myectomy in patient with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

This project is designed to demonstrate equivalence of Dotarem enhanced LGE-CMR (late gadolinium enhancement cardiac MRI) with Gadoviost enhanced LGE-CMR from the standpoint of visual image quality, quantitative image quality, and association with clinical outcomes.