Active clinical trials for "Heart Failure"

Heart failure (when the heart does not pump as well as it used to) is a medical condition which reduces the quality of life for the sufferers. Approximately 10% of people in western societies aged over 75 develop heart failure. There has been a shift towards prevention of this disease and it is hoped that BNP (brain natriuretic peptides) and NT-proBNP (N-terminal proBNP) will prove to be useful indicators of those at greatest risk. The current study therefore plans to follow up the 3500 participants at risk of heart failure from the original SCREEN-HF study. Participants who are willing to participate will be contacted annually. They will undergo a short physical exam, will be asked to complete a Quality of Life questionnaire and will have a blood sample taken. At the end of the study participants will also have an ECG and an echocardiogram.

KorAHF is a multi-center registry (prospective cohort) for acute decompensated heart failure patients in Korea. The aim of this registry is to analyze several causes affecting prognosis and survival and to develop new strategies for managing acute decompensated heart failure.

The purpose of the study is to investigate respiratory indicators for clinically important changes in Heart Failure status over time.

The purpose of this study is to gather information on how doctors program particular settings on cardiac resynchronization therapy implantable cardiac defibrillators (CRT-Ds), to analyze how these settings affect the amount of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) patients receive and to evaluate the therapy approach for converting abnormally fast heartbeats into normal heartbeats. There are no experimental devices or procedures involved in this study.

Heart failure is a progressive disease that decreases the pumping action of the heart. This may cause a backup of fluid in the heart and may result in heart beat changes. When there are changes in the heart beat sometimes an implantable heart device is used to control the rate and rhythm of the heart beat. In certain heart failure cases, when the two lower chambers of the heart no longer beat in a coordinated manner, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) may be prescribed. CRT is similar to a pacemaker. It is placed (implanted) under the skin of the upper chest. CRT is delivered as tiny electrical pulses to the right and left ventricles through three or four leads (soft insulated wires) that are inserted through the veins to the heart. People who have a dangerously fast heart beat, or whose heart is at risk of stopping beating, may be in need of an electronic device called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). An ICD is implanted surgically just under the skin in the upper chest area and it sends a strong electrical impulse, or shock, to the heart to return it to a normal rhythm. If the heart is beating too slowly or at an abnormal rhythm, an ICD can also pace the heart to return the heart to its normal rhythm. The InSync ICD device can change the timing of when the left and right ventricles of the heart are paced to beat. The purpose of this study is to monitor the long-term performance of the InSync ICD Model 7272 and the InSync Marquis 7277 systems for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).

To identify new dilated cardiomyopathy genes by genetic linkage and mutational analyses.

This registry will provide detailed patient demographics and characteristics at the time of enrollment and will also provide data regarding predictors of clinical outcomes such as heart failure decompensation, heart failure hospitalization, NYHA class, and quality of life.

An original cohort of 43 patients were recruited for analysis of anthropometrics, metabolic profile, skeletal muscle biopsy, echocardiogram at baseline, 3 months and 9 months post bariatric surgery. While all 43 patients reportedly completed 3 and 9 month evaluations, only 15 patients completed 24 month evaluations due to 28 patients unwilling to return. The overarching purpose appears to have been not only evaluation of weightloss, but normalization of metabolic profile over time.

In a retrospective community based cohort study from Pueblo County Colorado which has a higher population proportion of metabolic syndrome and diabetes mellitus, we hope to clarify and quantify an association of the AGE HBa1c elevation with the early subclinical hemodynamic changes of diabetic cardiomyopathy as measured by LAV, LVM, E/A ratio, E/e' ratio and BNP in patients with stage A heart failure.

Application of Nanotechnology and Chemical Sensors for Diagnosis of Decompensated Heart Failure by Respiratory Samples. Breath testing, which links specific volatile molecular biomarkers in exhaled breath to medical conditions, is becoming increasingly popular as a non-invasive and potentially inexpensive diagnostic method for various diseases. NA-NOSE performs odor detection from exhaled breath, thus producing a distinct fingerprint for each mixture of analytes. Several studies have been published, stating the advantages of these sensors, leading to promising outcomes in several fields. The NA-NOSE breath test would be fast (examination and results would be obtained within 5-10 min), inexpensive, eventually portable (smaller than desktop computer), non-invasive and free of any side effects.