Active clinical trials for "Ventricular Dysfunction, Left"

Heart Valve Disease and Heart failure contribute to 25% of hospital emergency admissions while heart failure alone has become one of the most common causes for hospitalisation in people over the age of 65. The burden of disease is likely to be high in a multi-ethnic community but there is a paucity of data. Management of heart valve disease requires appropriate surveillance and timely surgery. Similarly heart failure management requires treatment with medications aimed at slowing prevention of symptoms and preventing premature death. The NHS long term plan priorities early detection and treatment of valve disease and heart failure in order to reduce the burden on emergency services and improve the health of the population. Diagnosis is made using cardiac ultrasound, however staff with the required skills-set are critically limited in the community. The investigators will train non-expert staff within primary care to perform abbreviated cardiac ultrasound to detect heart valve disease or heart failure. This will be opportunistic scanning to reduce healthcare footfall. All scans will be reviewed by an expert and the investigators will use the anonymised data to develop machine learning tools to begin working with academic partners to develop tools that can improve the reliability of diagnosis from ultrasound. The investigators hope to identify the proportion with the above conditions in a multi-ethnic community and assess the feasibility of developing a program where staff can be trained for community detection, streamlined referrals can be created bridging the gap between primary and secondary care, reducing hospital emergency admissions, while ensuring patients are managed optimally.

The goal of this prospective cohort study is to investigate cardiac comorbidity in a random sample of approximately 1200 patients from a population of outpatients with rheumatoid arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis referred to collectively as inflammatory arthritis (IA). The main questions it aims to answer are: Using conventional echocardiography, the investigators aim to determine the prevalence of overt and asymptomatic cardiac dysfunction in a large random sample of outpatients with IA. Cardiac dysfunction will be evaluated by echocardiography and cardiac biomarkers (NT-pro-BNP, hs-TNT and hs-CRP). In patients without known heart disease: Using 2, 5 and 10 year follow-up, the investigators aim to examine if advanced echocardiography can be used to detect early signs of heart disease by investigating the clinical significance of adding deformation measures - alone and in combination with selected biomarkers - to conventional risk factors in the cardiac risk assessment of patients with IA Participants will undergo an echocardiographic examination in combination with a general health assessment including obtainment of cardiac biomarkers and a electrocardiogram. Using advanced echocardiography - Tissue Doppler Imaging, 2- dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography, 3D-echocardiography and 3-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography - the investigators also aim to compare myocardial deformation parameters of patients with IA to a gender and age matched control group without IA from the Copenhagen City Heart Study.

There are limited data on how the guideline indications for ICD implantation are applied in clinical practice across Europe. Moreover, the impact of "time-dependence" of some indications to implantation on the guidelines adherence is still unknown. Objective of the present observational study is the evaluation of the adherence to the scientific guidelines in patients with a time-dependent indication to ICD/CRT-D implantation admitted to an in-hospital cardiac rehabilitation program.

Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is one of the strongest predictors of mortality and morbidity in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) remains the gold standard for LVEF measurement. Currently, LVEF can be estimated at the time of the coronary angiogram but requires a ventriculography. This latter is performed at the price of an increased amount of contrast media injected and puts the patients at risk for mechanical complications, ventricular arrhythmia or atrio-ventricular blocks. Artificial intelligence (AI) has previously been shown to be an accurate method for determining LVEF using different data sources. Fur the purpose of this study, we aim at validating prospectively an AI algorithm, called CathEF, for the prediction of real-time LVEF (AI-LVEF) compared to TTE-LVEF and ventriculography in patients undergoing coronary angiogram for ACS.

Contemporary heart failure (HF) guidelines recommend insertion of a primary prevention implantable defibrillator (ICD) in patients with left ventricular ejection fraction less than 35% (LVEF < 35%) on maximally tolerated medical therapy. Nevertheless, there are a substantial number of HF patients who have LVEF>35% and hence do not qualify for ICD, who succumb to sudden cardiac death (SCD). At present our tools to reliably risk stratify these patients with mild-moderate systolic dysfunction (LVEF 36-50%) are poor. It is likely that these patients have ventricular scar and/or replacement fibrosis as a substrate for their malignant arrhythmia. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) can reliably identify and quantify both ventricular scar (seen in Ischaemic cardiomyopathy, ICM) and replacement myocardial fibrosis (seen in Non-Ischemic Cardiomyopathy, NICM). Methods/Design: A multi-centre randomised controlled trial in which 428 patients with mild-moderate left-ventricular systolic dysfunction (either ICM or NICM) and ventricular scar/fibrosis on cardiovascular magnetic resonance are randomized to either ICD or implantable loop recorder (ILR) insertion and are followed up until the last patient recruited has been in the study for 3 years. Potentially eligible patients will have a screening CMR and will be enrolled into the device arm of study based on the presence of any ventricular scar/fibrosis (CMR +). Patients who do not have ventricular scar/fibrosis will be followed up in an observational registry, and will not be randomised. In both the device and registry arms, we aim to enrol 700 patients in Australia and 355 in Europe. The primary hypothesis is that among patients with mild-moderate left ventricular systolic dysfunction, a routine CMR guided management strategy of ICD insertion is superior to a conservative strategy of standard care.

Post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is frequently observed after open-heart surgery. Despite numerous attempts to predict POAF, it remains a challenge to correctly identify the patients at risk. New technologies are available but not yet in cooperated in clinical guidelines and prediction models. We aim at identifying patients at risk of AF occurrence/recurrence after open-heart surgery by use of signal processed surface ECG (wavECG). The study is an explorative, prospective cohort study of 100 patients undergoing first-time elective open-heart surgery in the Left Atrial Appendage Closure by Surgery-2 (LAACS-2) trial (NCT03724318). Patients are examined by electrocardiogram (ECG), wavECG, transthoracic echocardiography and continuous heart rhythm monitoring. Primary endpoint is occurrence/recurrence of AF. Left ventricular diastolic dysfunction as evaluated by wavECG will be used to predict incidence of primary endpoint.

The assessment of left ventricular systolic function is based on the measurement of left ventricular ejection function (LVEF) by the Simpson biplane method. More recently, left ventricular global longitudinal strain (GLS) has been developed to detect abnormalities of cardiac contractility in patients with preserved myocardial contractility. However, both tools are not always easy to collect in practice. This is why other ultrasound parameters have been proposed in the literature as a substitute for LVEF and GLS such as the Doppler tissue imaging (DTI)-derived mitral annular systolic peak S-wave velocity (S'), the mitral annular plane systolic excursion (MAPSE) and the longitudinal wall fractional shortening index (LWFS). The purpose of this project is to propose an algorithm using simple parameters (S' wave, lateral MAPSE, septal MAPSE, mean MAPSE and LWFS) to predict LVEF and GLS in order to diagnose patients with impaired systolic function and preserved ejection.

Renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASi) have transformed prognosis of patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, diabetic nephropathy and chronic kidney disease. However, in everyday clinical practice patients often receive suboptimal doses of RAASi. The development of hyperkalaemia is one of the reasons for dose reduction or complete withdrawal of RAASi and this in turn is likely to have an adverse impact on patient outcomes. Yet it remains unknown precisely how often hyperkalaemia leads to changes to RAASi doses, if it is the sole reason, or whether this occurs in combination with other clinical situations such as worsened renal function and hypotension. It is also unclear what influences the decision-making process of healthcare professionals in managing patients with hyperkalaemia who take RAASi and if this is influenced by specialty, experience or indications for RAASi. In order to improve our understanding of the problem we are taking forward a research study (made up of 3 complimentary studies). These data are needed to help achieve our ultimate goal of improving the care of patients with prognostic indication for RAASi.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether multiple gated acquisition (MUGA) guided lead placement improves clinical outcomes for patients needing cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) compared to traditional posterolateral left ventricular lead placement.

Chronic heart failure represents an extremely complex clinical syndrome, defined as the inability of the heart muscle to generate a volume adequate to the metabolic needs of peripheral tissues, or to do so only in the face of high filling pressures intracavity. Heart failure is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in Western countries. Despite advances in the therapeutic field, the prognosis of patients with heart failure of ischemic and non-ischaemic aetiology still remains unfavorable, with a mortality rate of 50% 5 years after the first hospitalization.Therefore, a deeper understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in heart failure and adverse ventricular remodeling is essential.