Active clinical trials for "Heart Failure"

Superiority of additional Remote Patient Management (RPM) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) in comparison to usual care in terms of, e.g.: days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospitalization or death all-cause mortality cardiovascular mortality quality of life

The purpose of this study is to verify the effects of low frequency functional electrical stimulation in heart failure patients hospitalized for treatment of the syndrome.

The main objective is to test the hypothesis that inorganic nitrate supplementation will: (1) Improve exercise efficiency and performance; (2) Enhance the systemic vasodilator reserve during exercise and specifically, the vasodilator response in exercising muscle; (3) Reduce arterial wave reflections and arterial load; (4) Improve skeletal muscle mitochondrial function in subjects with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Patients admitted for acute heart failure and undergoing right heart catheterization will be enrolled in this study. Subjects will undergo catheterization of the heart to obtain central cardiac pressure and other cardiac hemodynamic parameters. Subsequently, the subject will undergo a regional nerve block of the splanchnic nerves. Patients will remain in the catheterization lab for the duration of anesthetic block and will be continuously hemodynamically monitored. This study will be a prospective, uncontrolled clinical trial. The study will not be controlled as invasive monitoring of hemodynamics will be performed, allowing clear demonstration of a cause-effect relationship. The goal of the study is to provide proof of concept.

Heart failure (cardiomyopathy) is a chronic condition in which the heart fails to function as a pump to move blood around the body. This sets up a complex physiologic response to compensate, which include activation of many hormonal mechanisms which result in fluid accumulation. In recent years, medications to block the hormonal response to heart failure are given as standard drugs, and these include ACE inhibitors and beta blockers. Mortality is reduced with these medications, as well as symptoms improved. Other medications are also used in heart failure, for which a clear-cut benefit has not been demonstrated. Statins, also called HMG CoA reductase inhibitors, are used to reduce cholesterol levels and can help to prevent heart failure by preventing heart attacks. They have been used in heart failure that is not caused by heart attacks in the belief that they had "pleiotropic" effects, meaning that they had beneficial effects in heart failure separate from the reduction in cholesterol. However large trials in heart failure have demonstrated that statins do not increase survival compared with placebo. There is no evidence to recommend their routine use in established heart failure caused by either heart attacks or genetics. The investigators propose that the use of statins in heart failure is unnecessary and could be stopped. The importance of finding evidence to cease unproven medications in heart failure cannot be understated. Patients with heart failure take an average of six prescription medications each day. Each medication has side effects and the interactions of all the drugs together are unknown. Statins are the commonest reason for side effects in patients with heart failure, causing muscle pains and gastrointestinal upset. In this study, the investigators plan to withdraw statins from patients with stable heart failure in a closely monitored environment and watch for the effect of this on heart failure and on how they feel generally.

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of three doses of prednisone, a glucocorticoid, in treatment of patients with symptomatic heart failure.

The purpose of the study is to test the efficacy of the Functionnal ElectromyoStimulation (FES) of lower limbs in advanced chronic heart failure. The hypothesis is that FES treatment could improve functional exercise capacity.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the short term efficacy and safety of tolvaptan in subjects hospitalized for worsening heart failure who have volume overload and one of the following: renal insufficiency, or hyponatremia or inadequate response to diuretic therapy. The primary variable for assessing efficacy will be self-assessed 7-point dyspnea score at 8 and 16 hours.

Heart failure is a common condition with debilitating symptoms and a poor prognosis. Patients with heart failure have a massively overactive sympathetic nervous system which attempts to compensate for their poorly functioning heart. This ultimately has only detrimental effects. One of the principle mediators for this sympathetic response is found in the nerve cells in the kidneys. Whilst a significant proportion of medications used to treat heart failure act on these harmful pathways, none target the kidney sympathetic-nerve cells specifically. Additionally, because of their multiple sites of action these drugs all have side effects. A new procedure that has recently been developed for the treatment of high blood pressure is renal denervation. This involves inserting a small catheter through the femoral artery and passing it to the kidney artery under x-ray guidance. From there, using radiofrequency waves, the sympathetic nerves within the kidney can be destroyed. The investigators anticipate that this procedure will have a significant positive effect on patients with heart failure and aim to perform a pilot safety study on 7 individuals with advanced heart failure to assess its safety and effectiveness. The investigators hypothesise that renal artery denervation will lead to significant clinical and biochemical improvements in patients with marked heart failure.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and performance of the MediGuide™ system during CRT implants.