Active clinical trials for "Univentricular Heart"

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of birth defects, with an incidence of 0.8%. Among CHD, univentricular heart disease or "single ventricle" is rare and complex. As a result of the improved patient care over the last decades, the number of children and adults with single ventricle is increasing significantly. Today, the main challenge is to ensure an optimal follow-up of these new patients in order to improve their life expenctancy as well as their quality of life (QoL). Currently, echocardiography and cardiopulmonary exercice test (CPET) are central in management of patients with single ventricle as part of good clinical practice guidelines. Single ventricle volumes and function are very difficult to asses with conventional echocardiography because of their complex geometry. Indeed, single ventricle size and morphology vary depending on the patient characteristics and on the initial CHD (before surgical repair). That's why conventional 2D echocardiographic parameters are not reliable for single ventricle assessment. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is more effective in assessing single ventricle volumes and function. Nevertheless, MRI is not universally available, is not practical in many situations, is expensive, and is a relative contraindication in patients with pacemakers. Over the past decade, the use of the 3D echocardiography has increased. This is an available tool that can assess ventricular function and volumes in few seconds. Recent studies shown a good correlation between 3D echocardiography and MRI for assessment of ventricular volumes and function in patient with CHD and especially in those with single ventricle. Moreover, according to some authors, CPET parameters are strongly correlated with risk of hospitalization, risk of death, physical activity and quality of life, especially in patients with single ventricle. To date, there is no study performed about the relationship between 3D echocardiography and CPET parameters in patients with single ventricle.

Neonatal patients with congenital heart defects (CHD) have changing physiology in the context of transitional period. Patients with CHD are at risk of low perfusion status or abnormal pulmonary blood flow. Near infrared spectroscopy has been used in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) to measure end-organ perfusion. The investigator plan on monitoring newborns with CHD admitted to the NICU with NIRS and echocardiography during the first week of life and correlate measures of perfusion from Dopplers to cerebral and renal NIRS.

The purpose of this study is to investigates serum and stool biomarkers as predictors for post-operative feeding intolerance in infant patients with complex congenital heart defects who undergo single ventricle staged palliation surgery.

Single ventricle defects make up the severe end of the congenital heart disease spectrum. The Fontan operation leads to a complete redirection of systemic venous blood outside of the heart and directly into the lungs. Patients with single ventricles suffer from multiple complications. Their survival has improved over the past decades, but is still severely compromised compared to the general population. Their evaluation includes echocardiography and functional status by history and/or exercise testing. In longer intervals or if echocardiography does not allow visualization of all cardiovascular structures, cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is employed. Many patients also undergo more invasive cardiac catheterization. In single ventricle patients, cardiac imaging has to address the questions of the patency of the Fontan pathways, i.e. all systemic veins, the Fontan conduit, and the pulmonary arteries, and of the function of the single ventricle (including myocardial function and valve function). By using conventional imaging methods in Fontan patients, Ghelani et al. identified a CMR-based ventricular end-diastolic volume of > 125 ml/m2 and an echocardiographic global circumferential strain (GCS) value of higher than -17% to be strong predictors for a combined adverse outcome of death or heart transplantation. While interobserver reproducibility of single ventricle ejection fraction is similarly high by echocardiography, CMR is better in reliably measuring ventricular mass and diastolic volume and can provide additional information by MR feature tracking (strain), T1 mapping, and 4D flow measurements. Several substances that can be measured in the peripheral blood are being increasingly investigated as biomarkers of heart failure. In conclusion, several advanced CMR sequences and new biomarkers have a potential role in the assessment and risk stratification of single ventricle patients. Every single published study has elucidated a particular use and aspect of these parameters, but broader correlations and prognostic values are still unclear. The investigators hypothesize that myocardial strain (by feature tracking), myocardial fibrosis (by T1 mapping), and intracardiac flow disturbances (by 4D flow) along with biomarkers are diagnostic for single ventricle dysfunction and correlate with known prognostic factors. This is a single center, prospective, observational cohort study. There will be no randomisation or blinding. Study setting: outpatients, cardiology clinic and radiology department, academic hospital. Every patient will be examined twice with a one-year interval (MR will only be repeated if clinically indicated).

The lymphatics regulate the interstitial fluid by removing excessive fluid. It represents an extremely important step in the prevention of edema. The Fontan-Kreutzer procedure has revolutionized the treatment of univentricular hearts. However, it is associated with severe complications such as protein-losing enteropathy (PLE) and peripheral edema that may involve the lymphatic circulation. Our hypothesis is that patients with a univentricular circulation have a reduced functionality of the lymphatic vasculature, which predisposes them to developing complications such as edema and PLE. The functional state of lymphatics is investigated using near infrared fluorescence imaging, NIRF. The anatomy is described using non-contrast MRI and the capillary filtration rate is measured using plethysmography.

A nationwide observational study. Children operated with single-ventricle palliation between January 1994 and December 2017 operated in Sweden will be included retrospectively. Patients born with a functionally single ventricle but not undergoing surgery will not be included. Data regarding preoperative clinical characteristics and operative details will be obtained by medical records review and from The Swedish Registry of Congenital Heart Disease (SWEDCON). Using unique personal identity numbers assigned to all residents of Sweden, data from SWEDCON will be linked with dates of death.