There are about 25435 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in United Kingdom. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
To compare two different methods of protecting heart muscle from damage caused by a decreased blood supply. Exposure to the anaesthetic agent sevoflurane can allow the heart muscle to resist longer periods of low blood or oxygen supply without sustaining the amount of damage that it would otherwise expect to. The use of thoracic epidural analgesia improves the blood flow to the heart muscle and has also been shown to reduce the amount of damage the heart muscle may otherwise sustain. The aim of this study is to compare these two methods.
Erythropoietin (EPO) is a naturally occuring hormone which regulates the body's response to lack of oxygen and controls the number of red cells in the blood. Recent studies in animals have shown that EPO has protective effects when organs such as the heart and brain are injured by lack of oxygen due to reduced blood supply. We wish to test the idea that giving a patient, who is having a heart attack, an injection of EPO will reduce the size of the heart attack.