Active clinical trials for "Coronary Artery Disease"

About 13 million people in the United States have coronary artery disease (CAD). It is the leading cause of death in both men and women. Coronary artery disease (CAD) occurs when the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle (the coronary arteries) become hardened and narrowed. The arteries harden and narrow due to buildup of fatty and calcified material called plaque on their inner walls. The buildup of plaque is also called atherosclerosis. This is a process which starts early in life, but can be influenced by multiple factors. Several factors increase the risk of developing atherosclerosis. They include high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol and being related to someone who had a heart attack or a stroke. The more risk factors you have, the greater the chance that you have severe atherosclerosis. Some of the risk factors cannot be modified, like age and family history of early heart disease. The influenceable factors include high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, high blood sugar, cigarette smoking, overweight or obesity, and lack of physical activity. Nevertheless, there are patients without any above mentioned risk factors who develop atherosclerosis. In addition to that, there are also patients with several risk factors who do not develop severe coronary artery disease. According to research studies high blood levels of some substances in the blood (biochemical markers) as well as some genes in the DNA of our cells may be associated with an increased risk of developing CAD and faster progression of the disease. The purpose of this study is to find a correlation between certain blood markers and growth of the plaques, regardless of the presence of the classic risk factors for atherosclerosis. If we prove our hypothesis we will be one step closer to predicting the extent of atherosclerosis by performing certain blood tests.

Mechanisms that link metabolic syndrome to atherosclerosis are incompletely understood. As a part of Hämeenlinna Metabolic Syndrome Research Program (HMS) surrogate indicators for atherosclerosis are studied in 120 men with metabolic syndrome, 120 men with coronary heart disease and 80 physically active controls and in different settings.

To evaluate the clinical values of using dose reduction techniques in 64-row multi-slice CT coronary artery imaging.

The present study hypothesizes that the systematic use of bilateral internal mammary artery (BIMA) grafting is feasible in the practice of a University Cardiac Surgery Institution for the treatment of multivessel coronary artery disease (primary hypothesis). The secondary study hypothesis is that the BIMA grafting meets the safety endpoint compared with the conventional surgical strategy entailing left mammary artery grafting plus great saphenous vein grafts to revascularize the remaining coronary targets. The tertiary study hypothesis is that the BIMA grafting yields better follow-up results in terms of recurrence of symptoms related to coronary disease, of repeat revascularization and of cardiac mortality compared with patients treated with the conventional surgical strategy entailing left mammary artery grafting plus great saphenous vein grafts to revascularize the remaining coronary targets.

This cardiac registry study will collect information from patients with ischemic or non-ischemic heart failure that have been treated with adipose-derived regenerative cells (ADRCs) delivered via intramyocardial injection.

This is a multi-center, investigator initiated study that will prospectively examine treatment strategies and outcomes of patients who underwent clinically-indicated Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS). The information collected will be used to determine the frequency of NIRS imaging performed at the participating sites and to examine the clinical outcomes of the NIRS-detected Lipid Core Plaques (LCPs).

NSTE-ACS patients are more likely to exhibit high-risk plaque characteristics in non-culprit lesions. Both IVUS and OCT imaging techniques interact in a complementary manner to provide morphological characterization of the atherosclerotic coronary plaques and help identification of high-risk vulnerable plaques. Using morphological parameters obtained from OCT and IVUS, a new plaque vulnerability score will be established for more precise definition of the most vulnerable plaques that carry the greatest risk of rupture and subsequent detrimental clinical outcomes in the future. Such score might help in targeting these plaques with certain therapeutic interventions aiming to their stabilization.

Left main stenosis use to be treated by bypass but with the improvement of angioplasty techniques, an increasing number of patients are submit to left main coronary angioplasty. Consequences of left main intra stent stenosis can be disastrous yet, for the moment, no precise recommendation concerning the follow up of these patients exist. The investigators ought to determine if stress echocardiography can predict left main intra stent stenosis as well (non inferiorly)as control angiography that use to be done.

This is a non-randomized, non-interventional pilot observational study designed to follow high-risk patients through their surgical and hospital stay. The investigators will collect 2 4ml vial's of blood (total of 8ml) prior to surgery to assess CV biomarkers - inflammatory, metabolic, hypercoagulable and platelet.

The overall goal of this study is to determine if non-invasive imaging with state of the art CT coronary angiography can be used to screen for coronary artery disease in high risk patients prior to liver and lung transplantation. The current protocol for coronary artery disease assessment at UCSF before liver and lung transplantation involves screening with stress tests and/or coronary angiograms in patients with increased risk of coronary artery disease. Coronary angiogram will be used as gold standard for assessment of coronary CTA accuracy.