View clinical trials related to Cardiomyopathy.
Filter by:An echocardiogram, also called a cardiac ultrasound or echo, is a medical test that takes pictures of the heart using sound waves. It shows images of the structures of the heart without using radiation. During the last year, the FDA has approved a new technology called Speckle Tracking that can look at the heart wall motion and contraction (pumping or squeezing) abnormalities. The study will also employ tissue Doppler and 3-Dimensional echo and uses the same echocardiographic machines which are used right now. The machines are upgraded with the new software application. This new technology is currently being used in adults, but unfortunately, there is almost no published data about normal heart function in infants and children using this technology. It is known from other technologies that the developing child's heart is not the same as an adult. The investigators wish to study this new technology and compare it to other technologies currently being used.
The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of patients with amyloidosis and severe heart failure being evaluated for cardiac and stem cell transplantation.
The aim of this study is to determine if therapy with the aldosterone antagonist, Eplerenone, is associated with improved remodeling of the left ventricle in patients with cardiomyopathy. We will determine if any benefit to cardiac remodeling is associated with improved clinical outcomes, including improved exercise capacity and reduced incidence of major adverse cardiac events such as death, hospitalization for heart-failure, serious heart rhythm disturbances and transplantation. The null hypothesis is that therapy with Eplerenone over 12 months is associated with an improvement in cardiopulmonary exercise capacity and furthermore that treatment is associated with improved clinical outcomes. In order to test this hypothesis we will study stable patients on optimal drug therapy with documented cardiomyopathy using a trial design where therapy will be randomized, double-blinded and placebo-controlled. This will reduce the likelihood of any 'researcher bias'. Patients will be recruited from the Heart-failure Service at the Royal Brompton Hospital.
This study will examine the incidence of cardiac complications, particularly cardiomyopathy, in patients who have undergone allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplantation at NIH. Cardiac complications in these patients are well documented. Most commonly, patients develop congestive heart failure or pericarditis after receiving high-dose cyclophosphamide, radiation, or other intensive chemotherapy regimens prior to the transplant. Most data in the medical literature suggest that the rate of serious cardiac complications is relatively low, at about 5 percent or less. Recently, a cluster of cases of significant cardiomyopathy in stem cell transplant patients at the NIH Clinical Center has prompted concern that the incidence of these complications is higher than that reported in the medical literature. This study will further define the incidence of cardiac problems, primarily focusing on cardiomyopathy, with the following objectives: - To define the incidence of cardiomyopathy in allogeneic stem cell transplant patients enrolled in National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Heart, Lung, and Blood (NHLBI) protocols at the NIH Clinical Center - To document the presence or absence of various known or suspected risk factors for cardiomyopathy in the documented cases. The study consists of a chart review of patients who have had an allogeneic stem cell transplant on either an NHLBI or NCI protocol since 1999. This project is a first step in clarifying the cardiac complications following stem cell transplantation, their incidence, and characteristics of the patient populations. It will look at patient demographics, the characteristics of the cardiac complication, and known or suspected risk factors.
To evaluate the maternal blood concentrations of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) during the second and third trimesters of a normal pregnancy. We will attempt to define a normal range for pregnancy and any outliers that may serve as markers for abnormal cardiovascular physiology.
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a medical condition that is due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD). LVSD is a decreased ability of the heart to pump blood forward. There are 5 million people in the United States that have CHF and 52,828 new cases are diagnosed annually. There are 995,000 hospital visits and 52,828 deaths annually due to CHF. Previous studies have shown that people with this condition are at a higher risk for complications immediately after any type of heart surgery than are normal individuals. This includes increased dependence on medications and devices to improve the pumping function of the heart and blood pressure. Additionally, they also have longer lengths of hospital stay and higher rates of death compared to normal individuals. Some patients with LVSD not only have a decreased pumping ability of the heart, they also have an inefficient pumping function. These patients have been shown to benefit from a device therapy known as biventricular pacing. Biventricular pacing involves simultaneously electrically stimulating the two major pumping chambers of the heart known as ventricles using a pacemaker and wires. This causes a more coordinated contraction of the heart chambers resulting in improvement in the pumping ability of the heart and blood pressure. Studies have confirmed that in these patients, implantation of a biventricular pacemaker improves patients' symptoms and quality of life as well as decreasing a need for future hospitalizations. Whether biventricular pacing in patients with LVSD improves patient outcomes after heart surgery has not been investigated. Some patients temporarily develop slow heart rates after cardiovascular surgery. These slow heart rates can cause a decrease in the blood pumped from the heart and result in low blood pressures. Therefore, all patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery, regardless of left ventricular function, receive temporary pacing wires that are placed on one of the ventricles during the surgery. Temporary pacing will result in an increase in heart rate and improvement in the amount of blood pumped by the heart and in blood pressure. The placement of these wires is precautionary as only a few patients need to be paced for slow heart rates. Once patients are felt to no longer require them, the wires are easily removed. The purpose of this study is to determine whether biventricular pacing immediately after heart surgery in patients with LVSD will improve in-hospital outcomes. Patients that are scheduled for heart surgery and meet the inclusion criteria will be approached for consent to participate in this study. Once consented, they will be randomized to one of three treatment arms: usual care, RV pacing (single ventricle pacing), or biventricular pacing. Randomization is a process similar to picking numbers out of a hat. The patients will then undergo surgery as scheduled. During the surgery, the patients will receive the temporary pacing wires on both ventricles instead of one. Immediately after surgery, the patients will receive either usual care, RV pacing, or biventricular pacing depending upon the treatment arm that they were randomized to. The pacing wires will be removed as soon as the patients become stable as per routine. The clinical, operative, and in-hospital characteristics of these patients will be recorded on specialized forms. The characteristics of those that received biventricular pacing will be compared to those that had RV or no pacing to see whether there was any benefit to this mode of therapy.
This is a pilot study to find a correlation between MRI and ICD therapy in patients with known cardiomyopathies, aiming to determine if cardiac scarring identified by MRI correlates with ventricular arrhythmias and the occurrence of ICD therapy.
Heart failure is a progressive disease that decreases the pumping action of the heart. This may cause a backup of fluid in the heart and may result in heart beat changes. When there are changes in the heart beat sometimes an implantable heart device is used to control the rate and rhythm of the heart beat. In certain heart failure cases, when the two lower chambers of the heart no longer beat in a coordinated manner, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) may be prescribed. CRT is similar to a pacemaker. It is placed (implanted) under the skin of the upper chest. CRT is delivered as tiny electrical pulses to the right and left ventricles through three or four leads (soft insulated wires) that are inserted through the veins to the heart. People who have a dangerously fast heart beat, or whose heart is at risk of stopping beating, may be in need of an electronic device called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). An ICD is implanted surgically just under the skin in the upper chest area and it sends a strong electrical impulse, or shock, to the heart to return it to a normal rhythm. If the heart is beating too slowly or at an abnormal rhythm, an ICD can also pace the heart to return the heart to its normal rhythm. The InSync ICD device can change the timing of when the left and right ventricles of the heart are paced to beat. The purpose of this study is to monitor the long-term performance of the InSync ICD Model 7272 and the InSync Marquis 7277 systems for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).
Heart failure is a progressive disease that decreases the pumping action of the heart. This may cause a backup of fluid in the heart and may result in heart beat changes. Using very low electrical pulses that travel across the inside of the chest cavity, thoracic fluid status monitoring (OptiVol™) can measure the level of resistance to the electrical pulses, which indicates the level of fluid in the chest. The purpose of this study is to collect information related to fluid build up in the chest of subjects with heart failure.
Heart failure is a progressive disease that decreases the pumping action of the heart. This may cause a backup of fluid in the heart and may result in heart beat changes. When there are changes in the heart beat sometimes an implantable heart device is used to control the rate and rhythm of the heart beat. In certain heart failure cases, when the two lower chambers of the heart no longer beat in a coordinated manner, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) may be prescribed. CRT is similar to a pacemaker. It is placed (implanted) under the skin of the upper chest. CRT is delivered as tiny electrical pulses to the right and left ventricles through three or four leads (soft insulated wires) that are inserted through the veins to the heart. The purpose of this study is to monitor the long-term performance of the InSync Model 8040 (InSync) and InSync III Model 8042 (InSync III) systems for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).