Clinical Research Directory

Statins in Reducing Events in the Elderly (STAREE) Heart Sub-study

The STAREE-HEART sub-study will examine the effect of statin treatment over a 3-year period compared with placebo on markers of cardiac ageing (myocardial dysfunction). This will include determining global longitudinal strain with transthoracic echocardiography, atrial fibrillation with home measures twice daily for two weeks and changes in biomarkers.

Prognosis Impact of NSVTs After an AMI (TeVeO Study).

Nowadays, Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) due to malignant arrhythmias is an important cause of death among acute myocardial infarction (AMI) survivors. Preventive strategies with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) are the best clinical option for patients, but associated sociosanitary impact in the National Health Systems and the fact that current implant strategy not always results in benefits for the patient requires to develop further selection criteria. The TeVeO project aims to study the events that take place early following an AMI to predict the short- and long-term risk of experiencing a potentially lethal ventricular tachycardia (VT). The project will carry out an observational and multicentric study involving 5 different hospitals to: a) qualitative and quantitative characterize non-sustained VTs (NSVT) that take place during the first 6 months after an AMI and b) characterize the evolution of the substrate (scar and surrounding tissue) in patients meeting criteria for ICD implant. Patients included in the study will be implanted with an implantable loop recorder (ILR) in order to register NSVT and cMRI images will be acquired prior to hospital discharge and at 6 months after AMI to study the substrate. Further patients' management will follow the protocols within each entity. Project results will allow us to stratify patients according to identified risks for developing malignant VT, which will improve patient selection for ICD implantation and will contribute to tailor patients' treatment and prevention, improving the cost-effectiveness of these devices and minimizing their associated problems and sociosanitary burden.

POWER Myocardial Fatigue Study: a Biomechanical Assessment of Contractility of Human Myocardium

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the biomechanical behaviour of human heart to explore the concept of myocardial fatigue in response to a temporal range of preload, afterload and drug-induced inotropy using in-vitro contractile assays.

The Relationship Between Inflammatory ARTritis and CArdiac DIseAse

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.