Active clinical trials for "Heart Diseases"

Fenofibrate is a drug that acts on the PPAR alpha receptors, increasing HDL-cholesterol and decreasing triglyceride levels. The interaction with these receptors has antiatherogenic actions by regulating the expression con key proteins that participate in vascular inflammation, plaque stability and thrombosis. Fenofibrate reduces triglycerides and increases HDL-C in plasma. It also decreases small, dense LDL particles. The use of this drug has resulted in improvement of vascular function measured by endothelial function. Our hypotheses state that fenofibrate will improve: endothelial function, improve HDL antioxidant capacity and size distribution towards a predominance of small HDL particles.

In a randomized study the Xience V coroary artery stent may be non inferior to the Cypher Select+ coronary stents in the treatment of unselected patients with coronary artery disease.

Each year, there are over 400,000 cardiac surgical operations performed in the United States; of which 10,000 are performed on children. These operations are made possible by the use of the heart-lung bypass machine, also known as cardiopulmonary bypass. This machine allows for the body to be supported while the heart is repaired. While this machine has been life saving, it has risks and can lead to a variety of complications. One such complication results from the fact that the patient's blood is exposed to the foreign material of the machine, such as plastic tubing. In nearly all cases of cardiac surgery, this leads to a whole body response in the patient following the operation. This response, inflammation, is characterized by alterations in the function of the heart and lungs, fever, fluid retention, and bleeding disorders in the postoperative period. While this is usually temporary and self limiting, significant morbidity occurs in approximately 1-2% of cases where this inflammatory response is present. Additionally, children appear to be more susceptible to this response. This can lead to significant postoperative complications that are not associated with the actually surgical procedure performed on the heart. The exact cause of this response is not fully understood. However, it is important to understand the triggers, timing, and pattern of this complex inflammatory response in order to modify or arrest it. Unlike other situations associated with this type of whole-body inflammatory reaction such as trauma or overwhelming infection, cardiac surgical teams have the advantage of knowing when the trigger will occur (i.e. during the cardiac operation) and hence have the opportunity for preemptive intervention in an effort to minimize the response. One such effort is the focus of this proposal. Nitric oxide (NO) is a gas that has been used for years in the treatment of lung disease in infants. It has been life saving and safe. Recently, it has been investigated for its anti-inflammatory effects outside the lungs. We propose delivering NO to the source of the greatest inflammation in cardiac surgery, the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. It is our intention to show that in doing so; we can minimize the inflammation found in the first 24 hours following cardiac surgery in children. If we are correct, the reduction of this inflammation will result in less damage to other organs of the child's body and improved outcome following surgery.

This multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study will assess, after 6 weeks of dosing, whether co-administration of ezetimibe 10 mg with simvastatin 20 mg will be more effective than treatment with doubling the dose of simvastatin to 40 mg alone in reducing low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) concentrations and in achieving the National Cholesterol Expert Panel (NCEP) III LDL-C target goal of <2.6 mmol/L (<100 mg/dL) for subjects with diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease.

The purpose of this study is primarily to determine the effects of propofol at different concentration on the mitral valve annulus by using Tissue Doppler Imaging

Children with congenital heart disease have significant morbidity including low cardiac output syndrome and subsequent organ dysfunction that may be prevented by optimization of circulatory function. More than half of these children receive milrinone. Clinical evaluation cannot distinguish between patients with sub-therapeutic, therapeutic, and toxic milrinone drug levels. Consequently children who require pharmacologic circulatory support may be receiving sub-optimal dosing, and children who do not need milrinone may be receiving milrinone unnecessarily. The primary objective of this study is to determine if optimizing milrinone levels with therapeutic drug monitoring in critically ill children following cardiac surgery improves clinical outcomes and reduces the duration of milrinone infusion. This study hypothesizes that optimizing milrinone levels with therapeutic drug monitoring in critically ill children following cardiac surgery will improve clinical outcomes and reduce the duration of milrinone infusion.

The purpose of the study is to assess the feasibility and safety of a transplantation of cardiac-committed progenitor cells derived from human embryonic stem cells in patients with severe heart failure.

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for the treatment of coronary bifurcation lesion (BL) remains a challenging task. The DK-crush have been established as a safe and efficacious dual-stenting technique, which can effectively improve the success rate of final kissing balloon inflation (FKBI) and reduce long-term major adverse cardiac events (MACE). However, in the clinical real world, especially when the bifurcation angle was relatively small, the DK-crush still has several limitations, such as kissing unsatisfied (KUS), relatively complex wiring or rewiring technique, incomplete stent coverage in the distal side of the side-branch ostium and near the carina, severe stent deformation or evenly acute stent destruction. Our observational study showed that the DK-culotte was also a safe and feasible dual-stenting technique and was equal to DK-crush in terms of improving FKBI and MACE. Nonetheless, there remain no studies for head-to-head comparison of clinical outcomes between the two approaches. We, thereby, carry out a multicentre, non-inferior, randomized and controlled trial to compare DK-culotte stenting versus DK-crush stenting in the treatment of true BL.

The purpose of the ISCHEMIA-CKD trial is to determine the best management strategy for patients with stable ischemic heart disease (SIHD), at least moderate inducible ischemia and advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD; estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] <30 ml/min/1.73 m² or on dialysis). This is a multicenter randomized controlled trial of 777 randomized participants with advanced CKD. Participants were assigned at random to a routine invasive strategy (INV) with cardiac catheterization (cath) followed by revascularization (if suitable) plus optimal medical therapy (OMT) or to a conservative strategy (CON) of OMT, with cath and revascularization reserved for those who fail OMT. The trial is designed to run seamlessly in parallel to the main ISCHEMIA trial as a companion trial. SPECIFIC AIMS A. Primary Aim. The primary aim of the ISCHEMIA-CKD trial is to determine whether an invasive strategy of cardiac cath followed by optimal revascularization, in addition to OMT, will reduce the primary composite endpoint of death or nonfatal myocardial infarction in participants with SIHD and advanced CKD over an average follow-up of approximately 2.8 years compared with an initial conservative strategy of OMT alone with catheterization reserved for those who fail OMT. The primary endpoint is time to centrally adjudicated death or nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI). B. Secondary Aims. Major: To compare the incident of the composite of death, nonfatal MI, resuscitated cardiac arrest, or hospitalization for unstable angina or heart failure, and angina symptoms and quality of life, as assessed by the Seattle Angina Questionnaire, between the INV and CON strategies. Other secondary aims include: comparing the incidence of the composite of death, nonfatal MI, hospitalization for unstable angina, hospitalization for heart failure, resuscitated cardiac arrest, or stroke; composite of death, nonfatal MI, or stroke; composite endpoints incorporating cardiovascular death; composite endpoints incorporating other definitions of MI as defined in the clinical event charter; individual components of the primary and major secondary endpoints; stroke and health resource utilization, costs, and cost effectiveness. A major secondary aim of ISCHEMIA-CKD trial is to compare the quality of life (QOL) outcomes-patients' symptoms, functioning and well-being-between those assigned to an invasive strategy as compared with a conservative strategy. In the protocol, angina frequency and disease-specific quality of life measured by the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) Angina Frequency and Quality of Life scales, respectively, are described as the tools that will be used to make this comparative assessment. Recent work has indicated that it is possible to combine the information from the individual domain scores in the SAQ into a new Summary Score that captures the information from the SAQ Angina Frequency, Physical Limitation and Quality of Life scales into a single overall score. The advantages of using a summary score as the primary measure of QOL effects of a therapy are a single primary endpoint comparison rather than two or three (eliminating concerns some may have about multiple comparisons) and a more intuitive holistic (patient-centric) interpretation of the effectiveness results. With these advantages in mind, the ISCHEMIA leadership has agreed that the SAQ Summary Score will be designated as the primary way this secondary endpoint will be analyzed and interpreted, with the individual SAQ scores being used in a secondary, explanatory and descriptive role. A key subgroup analysis will be to stratify the results among those with daily/weekly angina (baseline SAQ Angina Frequency score ≤60), monthly angina (SAQ Angina Frequency score 61-99) and no angina (SAQ Angina Frequency score = 100). Condition: Coronary Disease Procedure: Cardiac catheterization Phase: Phase III Condition: Cardiovascular Diseases Procedure: Angioplasty, Transluminal, Percutaneous Coronary, other catheter-based interventions Phase: Phase III Condition: Heart Diseases Procedure: Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery Phase: Phase III

Ancillary Effects of Dexmedetomidine Sedation After Cardiac Surgery