Active clinical trials for "Myocardial Ischemia"

The chronic coronary artery disease could be detected by a drop in the expression of A2A receptors to adenosine, while high values of the KD / EC50 ratio are a sign of coronary ischemia. Knowing the number of A2A receptors in circulating lymphocytes could allow detection of coronary artery disease and evaluating the functionality of A2A receptors in circulating lymphocytes could allow quantification of myocardial ischemia. Thus, a simple and unique blood sample would quickly detect patients with life-threatening coronary ischemia. This would avoid prolonged hospitalizations and costly non-invasive tests (stress echocardiography, myocardial scintigraphy) in patients without coronary artery disease.

The purpose of this prospective observational study is to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic performance of a "one-stop" comprehensive coronary artery anatomy and function assessment for CAD.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death in Trinidad and Tobago. Early detection and management can help improve morbidity and mortality. Retinal artery microvascular disease has been shown to directly correlate with coronary artery disease. Retinal artery calibre screening via the Optic Coherence Tomography (OCT) will provide a non-invasive method of diagnosing CAD.

The presence of myocardial ischemia is the most important prognostic indicator in patients with coronary artery disease. Therefore, the purpose of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is to relieve myocardial ischemia caused by the target stenosis. Fractional flow reserve (FFR) is an invasive physiologic index used to define functionally significant coronary stenosis, and its prognostic implications are supported by numerous studies. Contrary to the clear cutoff value and the benefit of FFR in pre-PCI evaluation, there have been various results regarding optimal cut-off values for post-PCI FFR. Nevertheless, the positive association between post-PCI FFR and the risk of future events has been reproduced by several studies. PCI with stent implantation is basically a local treatment and post-PCI FFR reflects both residual stenosis in the stented segment and remaining disease beyond the stented segment in the target vessel(s). Therefore, post-PCI FFR alone cannot fully discriminate the degree of contribution of each component. The relative increase of FFR with PCI is determined by the interaction of baseline severity of a target lesion, baseline disease burden of a target vessel, adequacy of PCI and residual disease burden in a target vessel. However, the most important problem in stratifying patients with better expected post-PCI physiologic results and following clinical outcome would be that there has been no clear method to identify these patients in pre-PCI phase. In this regard, we hypothesized that the amount of FFR step-up in pre-PCI pullback recording would determine the physiologic nature of target stenosis. For example, stenosis with sufficient step-up of FFR would deserve local treatment with PCI and these lesions would result in higher percent FFR increase, post-PCI FFR, and better clinical outcome than those without sufficient amount of FFR step-up. For this, we sought to develop automated algorithm to define physiologic major stenosis versus minor stenosis using pre-PCI pullback recording.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in Europe and worldwide. In 2014, they led to more than 4 million deaths in Europe, and coronary heart disease alone accounts for nearly 1.8 million deaths, or 20% of all deaths in Europe. However, mortality from cardiovascular disease and, especially, coronary heart disease has declined in recent decades. This has been made possible by improving the quality of care provided to patients. Several studies have been conducted to demonstrate this improvement in the quality of care, but they mainly measure the functional results of treatment, morbidity and mortality, survival and prolongation of life. However, patient-centered outcomes such as health-related quality of life outcomes (such as mental function, ability to resume activities of daily living, social relationship) are also considered important outcomes in the management and monitoring of these diseases. Some studies have shown that, even when other risks factors are controlled, a poor quality of life related to health is a prediction factor for morbidity and mortality in patients with coronary artery disease. Some studies have suggested that health-related quality of life should be strongly associated with lifestyle, co-morbidities, and mental function. Some factors have been identified as factors that may affect the quality of life in patients with coronary artery disease, including depression, anxiety, dyspnea and angina pectoris. Depression and anxiety were negatively associated with health-related quality of life in patients with cardiovascular disease. As for dyspnea, it has been shown that in stable patients who have had a myocardial infarction, its increase at 1 month after initiation of treatment is strongly associated with a decrease in the quality of life and with an increased risk of re-hospitalization and death. It is therefore important to measure these factors when the quality of life is assessed in patients with coronary heart disease. The importance of assessing quality of life is that the clinician and the patient often have different concerns: what the clinician considers to be a "successful procedure" is not always considered as such by the patient. Results related to quality of life (results rarely evaluated) are among the results that really interest the patient. Indeed, many patients consider the quality of additional years of life acquired as important as the lifespan, so the goal of today's medicine is to improve the quantity and quality of life of the additional years of life acquired. To ensure this improvement, the assessment of health-related quality of life should be integrated into the daily clinical practice of coronary heart disease management. The objective of our study is to evaluate the feasibility of this practice throughout the traject of care, by using several standardized questionnaires.

The primary aim of this study is to examine if long-term patterns of alcohol consumption are associated with time-to-onset for incident coronary heart disease (fatal and non-fatal), using data from multiple cohorts.

Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (CCTA) contrast opacification gradients and FFR-CT estimation can aid in the severity estimation of significant atherosclerotic lesions. Currently, FFR-CT algorithms can only be optimized using theoretical models and can only be validated in large multi-center clinical trials. Using patient specific 3D printed coronary phantoms would allow optimization of FFR-CT algorithms with a measured validation technique without the need for large clinical trials. Thus the investigators believe that this study will result in a FFR-CT algorithm/method with a better predictability for arterial lesion severity than those existing on the market today. Flow measurements will be compared with: CT-FFR for both patients and phantoms, angio lab FFR measurements and 30 days follow-up. This pilot clinical study includes ~50 patients over a year and half at GVI.

Identification of patients who are at highest risk for heart attack is an important task for emergency medicine physicians. Currently, physicians use a variety of different scoring systems to stratify their risk for having a heart attack. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a measure derived from noninvasive cardiac monitoring. This data is collected from a simple, non-invasive chest strap during a 10-minute recording session. The purpose of this proposal is to collect heart rate variability data on patients admitted to the emergency department with chest pain. The intent is to measure the association between heart rate variability and the various risk stratification scoring systems for chest pain.

Observational, prospective multicentric, national study, evaluating the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways of patient with cronic coronary artery disease followed in Italian cardiology centers.

Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is a visceral adipose tissue that surrounds the heart and the coronary arteries. It is metabolically active, secreting pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators and cytokines. With increasing EAT volume, inflammatory activity increasing, which suggests that EAT may locally influence atherosclerosis development in the coronary artery tree. The amount of EAT is associated with cardiovascular disease risk factors as well as presence and progression of subclinical atherosclerosis. Likewise, EAT volume is increased in patient with prevalent and incident coronary artery disease manifestation. In the setting of acute coronary syndrome, EAT was found to be associated with the TIMI risk score and Syntax II score. While CT imaging of the heart is the gold standard for EAT quantification, transthoracic echocardiography allows for a quick and reliable assessment of EAT thickness, as has been used in research studies and may qualify for routine EAT assessment in clinical routine.However, currently data on how quantification of EAT in clinical routine may impact patient management is lacking. We aim to investigate, whether quantification of EAT thickness via transthoracic echocardiography enables improved risk stratification in patients presenting with acute chest pain to the emergency department.