Active clinical trials for "Heart Diseases"

The objective of this study is to use of STIC technology to assist the traditional echocardiography to diagnose the fetal congenital heart disease accurately and then to provide a basis for prenatal counseling.

The objective of this study is to improve the diagnosis level of fetal congenital heart disease by the multi-center collaboration in China.

Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has become a standard monitoring tool during cardiac surgery. It allows continuous accurate assessment of heart structures and function without interfering with the surgery and the anesthetics. The imaging of cardiac structures is used to direct optimal surgical intervention and assess surgical results. Cardiac output (CO) is the result of stroke volume (SV) multiplied by the heart rate. Measurement of cardiac output (CO) is used to quantify the performance of the left ventricle. It is commonly achieved using a pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) (also known ad Swann-Ganz catheter). A known amount of saline solution is injected in the proximal part of the catheter and the variation of blood temperature detected at the tip. Cardiac output is measured based on the duration and degree of temperature change. This method remains an accepted gold standard. TEE allows measurement of cardiac output using a number of different 2D and 3D imaging modalities. Although current guidelines identify the Method of the Disks(MOD) as the gold standard other technique could potentially be more precise. In this study, the investigators want to assess the accuracy of four different TEE methods to measure cardiac output compared with Thermodilution as a standard of care.

To assess whether the aCQM-Strain ultrasound method allows a good analysis of fetal cardiac function. Establish normality parameters and compare it with fetuses with risk factors of cardiac dysfunction.

The aim of this clinical prospective study is to investigate the value of fetal cardiac magnetic resonance imaging using a new Doppler ultrasound based gating method for the detection of congenital heart desease.

To verify whether GLS and LV mechanical dispersion, measured by two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) correlate with LV scar burden measured by cardiac MRI in patients with ischemic heart disease.

To date, drug-eluting stents (DES) have become the standard of care in daily practice for the treatment of ischemic heart disease, by overcoming the risk of in-stent restenosis, a major issue raised in the bare-mare stents era. The application of potent anti-proliferative drugs and polymer structures that ensures sustained released of the drugs markedly reduced the neointimal hyperplasia, leading to much improved clinical outcomes compared with bare-metal stents. However, although first-generation sirolimus-eluting stents and paclitaxel-eluting stents significantly reduced the risk of in-stent restenosis and target-vessel revascularization, an augmented risk for very late stent thrombosis and fatal clinical events emerged as a new issue to be solved. Second- and newer- generation DESs adopted innovative stent platforms, novel stent materials, anti-proliferative drugs, and biocompatible polymers (including both durable and bioresorbable). Nowadays, numerous types of DESs (over 20 types) are available in clinical practice as well as bare-metal stents. However, little is known about the clinical outcome according to type of DESs in real-word practice. Given that many of recent randomized clinical trials (RCTs) demonstrate the 'non-inferiority' of brand-new DESs over older DESs in limited period time (usually for 1-year) in a selected patients eligible for RCTs, the real-world clinical outcomes according to type of DES implanted are still unveiled. Although, the question about the differential impact of generation of DES, type of biocompatible polymers (bioresorbable versus durable), thickness of stent struts and type of eluted anti-proliferative drugs are very important in clinical aspect of view, but there is little study conducted on all patients who are actually confronted in daily clinical practice. Korea operates national insurance system that covers most of the Koreans (97.1%) that are strictly monitored by National Health Insurance Service (NHIS). Of note, the claims database of NHIS of Korea contains all information including the demographic characters of patietns, diagnosis codes (ICD-9 and ICD-10), type of procedures or surgeries and the medical devices utilized, death certificates that contains type of death, and the drugs prescribe in outpatient clinic and hospitals in a individual pill level, that enables monitoring for the drug compliance. This unique feature of NHIS database allows the investigators to gain access to the dose and duration of cardio-protective medications including anti-platelet agents, lipid-lowering agents, anti-hypertensive agents, glucose-lowering agents, nitrate donors, vasodilators, and others. Given the benefits of NHIS database of Korea, we would like to establish a whole-population registry, named as COreaN NationwidE Claims daTa on Drug-Eluting Stent Registry (CONNECT DES Registry). A comprehensive analysis of this data is expected to shed new light on the impact of type of DESs and drug use in real-world practice that could be fully revealed through RCTs.

The aim of this research is to know the incidence of arrhythmias in on vs. off pump CABG and to know their relations to the patient's morbidity and mortality, hospital stay and hospital costs.

To assess the demographic variables, periodontal parameters and to determine the expression of Trefoil factors 2 and 3 and Adrenomedullin in unstimulated saliva samples of periodontally healthy subjects with coronary heart disease and generalised chronic periodontitis subjects with and without coronary heart disease.

During elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), both proximal and distal protection devices are used. The distal occlusion protection device temporarily occludes the vessel distal to the lesion during the intervention, thereby capturing both particular debris and soluble substances released from the lesion such that they can be aspirated and prevented from reaching the coronary microcirculation. Rather than simply discarding the material which is retrieved from use of protection devices, the investigators have recently taken advantage of this situation, sampled the particulate and soluble material and subjected it to a variety of analyses with the ultimate goal to have a better insight into the respective plaque composition and to correlate it to the individual imaging and clinical data. On the basis of such information the investigators aim to better understand the pathophysiology of plaque vulnerability and to possibly predict the clinical development of the individual patient.