Active clinical trials for "Death, Sudden, Cardiac"

The purpose of this retrospective observational study is to obtain information to confirm or contradict the results of prior studies on domperidone and sudden cardiac death. The population studied are the Saskatchewan residents who used domperidone or another type of medication known as a Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) between 1990 and 2005. Information will be collected from various sources including the Saskatchewan Health (SH) database and Cancer Registry.

The investigators will examine whether an educational video increases patient knowledge about heart failure and the risk of sudden cardiac arrest and leads to greater satisfaction with information provided as compared to usual care. Additionally, the investigators will look at whether racial concordance (physician and patient being of the same race) improves satisfaction with the patient's treatment decision and disease knowledge. Our hypothesis is that a video in which participants are of the same race as the patient will provide better education and more satisfaction with the treatment decision and may lead to more patients choosing ICD therapy.

Sudden cardiac death due to arrhythmia is the leading cause of death in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients treated with hemodialysis (HD). As it is anticipated that the number of individuals with ESRD will exceed 1.2 million in the next 20 years, sudden death in this population has enormous public health impact. Research has shown that arrhythmic events are temporally associated with longer periods between HD with a three-fold risk of events in the 12 hours preceding the longest inter-dialysis interval. The exact cause of these findings is unknown.

Adult myotonic muscular dystrophy (Steinert's disease) is the most common inherited neuromuscular disorder. Cardiac rhythm disturbances occur frequently in this disease state and may be responsible for up to one-third of deaths. In this study, we intend to evaluate the utility of non-invasive electrocardiographic screening methods and history in predicting serious arrhythmic events.

The purpose of the Improve SCA Bridge study is to characterize the care pathway flow of post-acute myocardial infarction (MI) patients as a result of standard assessments of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in the acute phase (≤14 days post- acute MI) and chronic phase (≥40-90 days post-acute MI).

Hemodynamic monitoring in hospitalized patients is crucial since in clinical practice unexpected deterioration of cardiovascular function remains a serious problem and an important cause of death. Novel perspectives in reflex testing of the autonomic nervous system might be useful to protect some patients from cardiovascular events by detecting cardiovascular deteriorations. In addition, standard pulse oximetry in low acuity settings is nowadays predominately used to monitor peripheral oxygen saturation. Of note, there is evidence that additional analyses of pulse wave characteristics might be a valuable source of information to generate additional insights into the cardiorespiratory status of the patient. Herein, we aim to develop novel algorithms in order to protect in-hospital patients from cardiovascular events in consequence of hemodynamic instability in the future.

The prospective EUTrigTreat multi-center study is an observational, advanced diagnostics and genetic risk stratification trial in patients with standard indications for ICD treatment, with and without myocardial infarction in their history. Its aims are fourfold: 1) To accurately risk stratify a large cohort of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) patients for ICD shock risk and mortality using traditional risk markers as well as genetic markers 2) To find a link between repolarization biomarkers and genetic markers of calcium metabolism. 3) To compare invasive and noninvasive electrophysiologic (EP) testing systematically 4) To assess temporal changes of typical noninvasive risk stratifiers and their prognostic implication. In five European academic clinical centers, 700 ICD patients are prospectively enrolled (optionally the number of enrolled patients may be expanded to 1000 patients). Comprehensive non-invasive risk stratifying ECG diagnostics including beat-to-beat variability of repolarization (BVR) are applied, and candidate genes associated with malignant arrhythmias are analyzed. Programmed electrical stimulation is performed to test for inducibility of malignant ventricular arrhythmias and BVR. In a subset of patients, electrophysiologic studies include recording of monophasic action potentials (MAP) from the right ventricle for assessment of restitution properties. Non-invasive risk stratifying ECG methods are repeated annually. Outcome (mortality, ICD shocks) will be assessed until September 2014.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a heart disease characterized by hypertrophy of the left ventricular myocardium and is most often caused by mutations in sarcomere genes. The structural and functional abnormalities cannot be explained by flow-limiting coronary artery disease or loading conditions. The disease affects at least 0,2% of the population worldwide and is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in young people and competitive athletes due to fatal ventricular arrhythmia, but in most patients, however, HCM has a benign course. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to properly evaluate patients and identify those who would benefit from a cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate long-term performance of the DF4 Connector System. This evaluation is based on the number of DF4 lead-related complications occurring during the study compared to the number of leads enrolled in the study. The DF4 systems will be followed for 5 years after implant. This study is required by FDA as a condition of approval of the DF4 Connector Systems. This study is conducted within Medtronic's post-market surveillance platform.

Worldwide three million people a year die from sudden cardiac death (SCD). In most cases there is no warning and the heart is stopped by a sudden arrhythmia. We know that some people are at high risk of sudden cardiac death and can prevent their deaths with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) that is implanted in a minor operation. However, most people who die from sudden cardiac death are not found to be at high risk by our current risk markers and 40% of the people who have ICDs do not have therapy within the first 4 years after implant. We need new and better ways of identifying people who are at high risk of sudden cardiac death so that we can prevent their deaths with ICDs. Our understanding of the electrical signals in the heart has increased considerably in recent years; in no small part this is due to our Principal Investigator Professor Andre Ng's basic science work. This study aims to take the understanding of action potential duration (APD) restitution gained through our work and other studies in humans and in computer simulations and translate it into a fresh way of assessing risk of sudden cardiac death. This study will carefully examine electrical activity, using APD restitution, in the hearts of patients who are having ICDs fitted because of their high risk of sudden cardiac death and combine this with a detailed heart scan, assessment of autonomic nervous system and gene expression data. We will then follow these patients up to see who benefits from their ICD. This wide ranging information will give us as complete a picture as possible of the factors that cause sudden cardiac death. We hope to use this to identify better predictors of sudden cardiac death. The study hypotheses are as follows: Primary Regional Restitution Instability Index (R2I2) will be significantly higher in patients reaching the endpoint of ventricular endpoint / sudden cardiac death than in those not. An R2I2 cut-off of 1.03 will partition patients into high and low risk groups. Secondary Peri-infarct zone mass in grams will be significantly higher in patients reaching the endpoint of ventricular endpoint / sudden cardiac death than in those not.