Active clinical trials for "Cardiomyopathies"

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) affects about 200,000 Canadians. Eighty percent of these cases are of unclear cause, often occuring in families. We believe that mutations in specific already-identified genes contribute to DCM in Quebec and that certain mutations may account for a significant proportion of cases due to the well-documented "founder effect". Two hundred patients with DCM followed in our Heart Function Clinic will be approached for one blood sample at their routine clinic visit to test this hypothesis. The samples will be tested in the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Genetics at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Background. Clinical benefits of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) have been clearly demonstrated in heart failure (HF) patients with severe left ventricular (LV) dysfunction and wide QRS at surface electrocardiogram. However, there is a growing evidence that QRS duration poorly predicts responses to CRT, and that ~30% of patients do not experience any benefit from CRT when pre-implant dyssynchrony is defined according to electrocardiographic criteria. A number of echocardiographic criteria have been proposed to assess mechanical LV dyssynchrony, but at present there is no consensus on their use to predict response to CRT. Study Design. The Italian Multicenter PROject on echo assessment of left VEntricular (IMPROVE) dyssynchrony study is a prospective, multicenter, observational study aimed to assess feasibility and predictive power of mechanical dyssynchrony assessed by echocardiography in consecutive consenting patients candidate to CRT by clinical and electrocardiographic criteria. IMPROVE will enroll 120 healthy subjects and 216 HF patients in 6 sites in Italy. CRT response criteria will be based on improvement in NYHA class and LV reverse remodeling evaluated by 3D-echocardiography. Enrollment is expected to conclude early 2009. Implications. CRT is today part of the therapeutic armamentarium for symptomatic HF patients refractory to medical therapy, with wide QRS complex and severe LV systolic dysfunction. The IMPROVE study has been designed to evaluate reference values of indexes of ultrasound mechanical dyssynchrony that have been proposed in the literature and compare their ability to predict response to CRT in HF patients.

The investigators aimed to use pharmacogenetic information in clinical practise which may lead to rapid, efficient, and safe warfarin dosing in this observational prospective study. In this context, the investigators plan to develop an algorithm for estimating the appropriate warfarin dose that is based on both clinical and genetic data from the Turkish study population. This study is unique not only investigating clinical factors, demographic variables, CYP2C9, and VKORC1 gene variations which contribute to the variability among patients in dose requirements for warfarin but also including thrombogenic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the same patient population. Thus, warfarin would be a good example by being the first cardiovascular drug for pharmacogenetic guided "personalized medicine" applications.

Retrospective cohort study including patients with genetically proven Duchenne muscular dystrophy, diagnosed from January 1993 to March 2020. Inclusion of the data relative to genetic diagnosis, clinical characteristics at baseline, cardiac and respiratory workup, medical treatments (ACE inhibitors, steroids), surgical procedures, and occurrence during follow-up of cardiac, respiratory and fatal events. Objectives are to describe long-term natural history of the disease, vital prognosis, genotype-phenotype correlations, effect of treatments.

This study aims to understand the onset an functional consequences of left ventricular interstitial fibrosis in patients with chronic kidney disease (stage 2 to 5), as well as assess whether transplantation results in a regression of cardiac fibrosis.Thus all patients will undergo: 1) a cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to assess cardiac function and measure left ventricular interstitial fibrosis; 2) a cardiopulmonary stress echocardiogram to understand the functional consequences of fibrosis and rule out any underlying ischaemic heart disease; 3) a 24 hour holter monitor and electrocardiogram (ECG) to assess whether these patients are at higher risk of arrhythmia.

Diabetic Cardiomyopathy (DCM) is disease of myocardial structure and function which is independent of hypertension, coronary heart disease, heart valve abnormalities, and other types of heart disease. DCM affects approximately 12% of diabetics and also appeared in some patients with well-controlled blood glucose. There is no specific and effective diagnostic method of DCM currently. Since it is well known that the dysfunction of myocardial metabolism caused by hyperglycemia and insulin resistance induces DCM, the method of evaluation of the metabolism will assist the diagnosis of DCM. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (phosphate) (NAD(P)H) is one of important coenzymes involved in biological metabolism. Fluorescence lifetime microscopy (FLIM) can detect the metabolic status based on the fluorescence characteristics of NAD(P)H. Previous studies have reported that NAD(P)H fluorescence lifetime can be used to assess the metabolic status of living cardiomyocytes cultured in vitro, and metabolism changes related to myocardial infarction and heart failure in rats. the investigators detected the metabolic status by label-free FLIM on the myocardial tissues and blood plasma in a rat model of type 2 diabetic cardiomyopathy, and found FLIM could provide valuable information about the myocardial metabolism by detecting the NAD(P)H fluorescence lifetime of blood plasma. Recently, The investigators have explored the method of the FLIM in clinical study. The investigators used FLIM to compare the NAD(P)H fluorescence lifetime of blood plasma in healthy participants, type 2 diabetic patients with normal diastolic function and with diastolic dysfunction. The results showed that the NAD(P)H fluorescence life parameter of a2 was lower in type 2 diabetic patients with diastolic dysfunction (30.5±2.7%) than in healthy participants (41.5±4.8%) and type 2 diabetic patients with normal diastolic function (37.8±3.7%). Therefore, The investigators propose FLIM can provide valuable information about the myocardial metabolism, and it can be used as a non-invasive, label-free, and rapid screening method of diagnosis of DCM. In this study, the investigators will recruit 243 patients with type 2 diabetes and divide them into two groups: normal diastolic function group (DM Group) and diastolic dysfunction group (DCM Group), based on the symptoms, laboratory examination and echocardiographic results. Then FLIM will be applied to detect the NAD(P)H fluorescence characteristics of venous blood of all patients. After that, the correlation between the parameters of diastolic function (E peak, E/E' ratio, left atrial volume, NT-proBNP) and the parameters of metabolism status (NAD(P)H fluorescence life parameter of a2 and the ratio of bound state/free state NAD(P)H) will be analyzed. This study will verify FLIM is helpful to diagnose DCM.

The investigators would evaluate the effects of the novel method, HTEA on cardiac function in the heart failure patients secondary to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and post-myocardial infarction.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether electrocardiogram, echocardiography, cardiac MRI, sera biomarkers can improve early detection of myocardial involvement and clinical outcome.

The pressure exerted by the ablation catheter on the tissue has been shown to play an important role on determining the size and the potential efficacy of the ablation lesions. A direct information on the force exerted by the catheter tip obtained from the SmartTouch technology might improve the assessment of the scar areas during electroanatomical mapping in patients with ventricular tachycardia (VT) due to ischemic disease or cardiomyopathy. The objectives of the study are to compare the areas of scar (defined as a low-voltage threshold) obtained from the conventional voltage map with those obtained after the contact map information is available to the operator and to determine if the availability of the contact information allows an improvement of the electroanatomic map by correcting the points taken in no-contact areas. Twenty to 30 consecutive patients with ventricular arrhythmias due to ischemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy undergoing VT ablation will be included in a prospective, one-center, non-randomized study. A voltage map of the left ventricle will be obtained using the CARTO-3 navigation system and the scar areas as well as the areas of potential interest for ablation will be delineated in the standard way and saved as the control map. The force information will be recorded by the system but will not be available to the operator until the control map is saved. Following this step the contact map will be available to the operator to be compared with the control map and further mapping and point acquisition will be allowed to correct the areas previously acquired with poor or no contact. The final map after corrections have been made will be saved as the corrected map. The ablation procedure will then be performed as usual. Both maps will be compared in a deferred way to know how are classified the areas without contact when no pressure information is available, and how many non-contact points are falsely assumed to be low-voltage or dense scar points. These comparisons will give information on how much the standard electroanatomic map can be improved when the force information is added.

The cardiac Fabry disease are early, frequent and severe, dominated by the frequency of left ventricular hypertrophy. They are responsible for a high morbidity and mortality, reducing life expectancy of 15 to 20 years for men. Fabry disease and heart attacks are still diagnosed late. This delay in diagnosis is due to the non-specificity of clinical, electrocardiographic and echocardiographic disease, but also by a certain ignorance of this pathology in the medical community. The importance of early diagnosis of Fabry disease and heart disease is well established: enzyme replacement therapy is most effective when instituted early, before the onset of irreversible damage such as fibrosis. With the blotter, we now have a simple and robust screening tool for Fabry disease, achievable consultation. Targeted educational interventions to physicians have shown their effectiveness in improving the screening and diagnosis of rare diseases. We offer a prospective observational type before / after study, which aims to assess the value of an educational brochure for cardiologists to improve the screening and diagnosis of Fabry disease in Normandy.