Clinical Research Directory

Morphine Versus Fentanyl for Myocardial Protection in Acyanotic Children Undergoing Congenital Open-Heart Surgery

This study compared two opioid pain medications - morphine and fentanyl - used during open-heart surgery in young children born with heart defects (congenital heart disease). During open-heart surgery, the heart is temporarily stopped to allow surgeons to repair the defect. This process can cause damage to the heart muscle due to reduced blood flow and its restoration, known as ischemia-reperfusion injury, which is one of the leading causes of complications in children undergoing heart surgery. Morphine is known to activate specific receptors in the heart that may help protect it against this type of injury - a process called pharmacological preconditioning. While fentanyl has largely replaced morphine in pediatric cardiac anesthesia over the years, emerging evidence suggests that morphine may have unique heart-protective properties that fentanyl lacks. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether morphine provides better heart muscle protection than fentanyl in children with non-cyanotic congenital heart disease undergoing elective open-heart surgery. The study also aimed to compare postoperative recovery, need for heart-supporting medications, and other clinical outcomes between the two groups.

Effects of Hypoxic-hyperoxic Preconditioning in Cardio-surgical Patients

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with cardiopulmonary bypass is a common surgical therapy for patients suffering from coronary artery diseases. The heart is subjected to a long period of ischemia due to the occlusion of the aorta. The heavy burden of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) thus induces cardiomyocyte death, which can paradoxically reduce the beneficial effect of CABG. Preconditioning by moderate hypoxia or hyperoxia serves as an effective drug-free method to increase the organism's resistance to negative effects, including IRI.

Remote Ischaemic Conditioning in STEMI Patients in AFRICA

The RIC-AFRICA trial is a multi-centre, sham-controlled, randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving 1400 ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients presenting within ≤ 24 hours of myocardial infarction (MI) onset, across approximately 25 sites in 7 African countries (South Africa, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Mozambique, Senegal and Mauritius). Patients presenting with STEMI and deemed ineligible for the RIC AFRICA RCT because they present \>24 hours from MI onset but less than 72 hours, will be recruited into the observational arm of the study with the same endpoints as the trial. The purpose of the RCT is to determine whether Remote Ischaemic Conditioning (RIC) can reduce the rates of all-cause death and early post-myocardial heart failure at 30-days in STEMI patients treated predominantly with thrombolytic therapy.