Clinical Research Directory

Arrhythmogenic Activity During Exercise in ARVC Patients

Current guidelines advocate that ARVC patients, typically young and active individuals with a significant history of competitive endurance sports, cease endurance training in favour of activities with low cardiac burden such as bowling and golf. Empirically, it is often suggested that heart rate during exercise should not exceed 100-120 bpm in these patients, but these guidelines are arbitrary and not scientifically based. In practice, it is estimated that up to 50% of patients do not comply with these recommendations . Adequate quantification of the arrhythmogenic burden, defined as premature ventricular beats in proportion to all heart beats in each period of time, and cardiac load (defined as stroke volume for volume load and systolic blood pressure for pressure load) experienced by ARVC patients when performing different types of physical exercise would be a first step towards designing a safe and effective intervention so that these patients can profit from an active life style. This study therefore aims to quantify and describe the arrhythmogenic burden and cardiac load experienced by patients with ARVC while performing different physical exercise over a range of intensities - all strictly within the range currently recommended by different cardiological societies.

Targeted Therapy With Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3 Inhibition for Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy

The TaRGET study is a multi-centre, prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial designed to evaluate the potential therapeutic efficacy of tideglusib, a glycogen synthase kinase-3 β inhibitor, in genotype positive arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy.

Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Mutation Analysis

The goal of this protocol is to obtain information from individuals with cardiomyopathy and from their families in order to elucidate the molecular genetics of this disorder. This will provide the basis for future genetic counseling as well as contribute to elucidating the biology of normal and abnormal cardiac function.

Mayo AVC Registry and Biobank

Arrhythmogenic ventricular cardiomyopathy (AVC) is a genetic condition which affects the heart and can lead to heart failure and rhythm problems, of which, sudden cardiac arrest or death is the most tragic and dangerous. Diagnosis and screening of blood-relatives is very difficult as the disease process can be subtle, but sufficient enough, so that the first event is sudden death. The Mayo Clinic AVC Registry is a collaboration between Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA and Papworth Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals, Cambridge, UK. The investigators aim to enroll patients with a history of AVC or sudden cardiac death which may be due to AVC, from the US and UK. Family members who are blood-relatives will also be invited, including those who do not have the condition. Data collected include symptoms, ECG, echocardiographic, MRI, Holter, loop recorder, biopsies, exercise stress testing, blood, buccal and saliva samples. Objectives of the study: 1. Discover new genes or altered genes (variants) which cause AVC 2. Identify biomarkers which predict (2a) disease onset, (2b) disease progression, (2c) and the likelihood of arrhythmia (ventricular, supra-ventricular and atrial fibrillation) 3. Correlate genotype with phenotype in confirmed cases of AVC followed longitudinally using clinical, electrocardiographic and imaging data. 4. Characterize desmosomal changes in buccal mucosal cells with genotype and validate with gold-standard endomyocardial biopsies

Open-label, Dose Escalation Study of Safety and Preliminary Efficacy of TN-401 in Adults With PKP2 Mutation-associated ARVC

This first-in-human study is designed to evaluate the safety, and preliminary efficacy (PD) of TN-401 gene therapy in adult patients with symptomatic PKP2 mutation-associated ARVC.

AI-enabled Screening and Diagnosis of Cardiomyopathies Using Coronary CTA

The goal of this observational and diagnostic study is to develop and validate an artificial intelligence assisted approach for coronary computer tomography angiography-(CCTA)-based screening and diagnosis of cardiomyopathies in patients with suspected coronary artery diseases. This study aims to develop a computerized CCTA interpretation using artificial intelligence for multi-label classification task to assist cardiomyopathy diagnosis in the clinical workflow.

Non-interventional Study of Seroprevalence of Pre-existing Antibodies Against Adenovirus-associated Virus Vector (AAV9) and the Progression of Disease in Patients With Plakophilin 2 (PKP2)-Associated Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC)

This is a multicenter, non-interventional study to observe the natural progression of the disease and to study the prevalence of pre-existing antibodies to AAV9 used for gene therapy in a population of patients with PKP2 gene-associated ARVC. Participation from all patients is encouraged regardless of interest in or eligibility for gene therapy.

DZHK TORCH-Plus is a Registry for Patients With Cardiomyopathies and Serves as Source for Cardiovascular Research Studies

The DZHK TranslatiOnal Registry for CardiomyopatHies (DZHK TORCH) represents a unique resource of clinical data and high quality biological samples to enable innovative clinical and molecular studies on cardiomyopathies (CMP). As a multi-center German cardiomyopathy registry, TORCH has been prospectively admitting patients since December 2014. 2,300 patients were recruited as planned. Taken together, patient data showed that the prevalence of these diseases is much higher in men than in women, atrial fibrillation is common in all forms of CMPs as well as rare forms of disease indicate a higher risk and higher morbidity. This DZHK TORCH register is now to be expanded with a second phase (DZHK TORCH-Plus). The second phase DZHK TORCH-Plus consists of 4 main modules: 1. "Clinical phenotyping, follow-up \& biosampling" 2. "Genomics", 3. "Inflammation" and 4. "Biomarker". The central aims are 1) to significantly increase the number of probands (n = 4340) in order to better address the different types of CMPs, especially patients with rare CMP forms such as LVNC and ARVC or with probably molecularly explainable cardiomyopathies (familial DCM), 2) to prolong the longitudinal with a further follow-up to achieve sufficient events and thereby derive clinical recommendations for risk assessment, 3) to increase the number of probands with state-of-the-art phenotyping, 4) to pinpoint the effect of myocardial inflammation, fibrosis, gender and to determine or predict genotypes based for outcome, 5) to validate novel biomarkers developed in other DZHK studies, and 6) to foster active cooperation with international CMP registries and partners from industry.

Sahlgrenska Cardiomyopathy Project

This is a joint project by Sahlgrenska University Hospital: Sahlgrenska, Östra and Mölndal. Our objective is to diagnose and map patients with well phenotyped cardiomyopathies (CMP) including in depth clinical and molecular phenotyping to enable earlier and specific treatment. The project will serve as: 1. resource for diagnostic and therapeutic trials 2. common biomaterial bank 3. resource for detailed molecular analyses on patients' biomaterials and patient specific symptoms and examination results