View clinical trials related to Atherosclerosis.
Filter by:The purpose of this study is to determine the relations between conventional and unconventional risk factors and adverse clinical events at follow-up (including coronary bypass patency) in patients undergoing surgical myocardial revascularization.
This randomized controlled double-blind intervention study unravels influence of dietary plant sterols and stanols on the structure and the sterol composition of the human aortic valve. The study patients will include 50-60 voluntary patients from the Helsinki Univ. Central Hospital, who will undergo aortic valve surgery. The patients will be randomized into plant sterol (E), plant stanol (A) and control (C) groups. Patients in the E and A groups will be asked to consume daily 2 grams plant sterols or plant stanols, respectively, in a margarine product.
The incidence of cardiovascular diseases is still high and further efforts should be done in primary prevention. The main objective is to quantify the burden of subclinical atherosclerosis using non-invasive techniques,and to study the impact of this assessment and consequent treatment in the progression of atherosclerosis and in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether atorvastatin, aggressive lifestyle intervention, and their interaction are effective in delaying the progress of pre-clinical atherosclerosis.
Dyslipidaemia is characterized by low plasma levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), elevated triglycerides and an increase in low density lipoprotein (LDL-c) particles, and has been unequivocally established as a most important cardiovascular risk factor. While statins are effective in reducing plasma levels of LDL-c, these drugs have only modest effects on raising HDL-c (typically by less than 10%), even with aggressive statin therapy. However, increasing evidence suggests that low HDL-c might be at least as relevant as high LDL-c in promoting the development and progression of atherosclerosis. The beneficial effect of raising HDL-c on clinical outcome has already been demonstrated by several studies. Nicotinic acid is the most potent agent available for raising plasma levels of HDL-c by up to 29% at clinically recommended doses, and substantially lowers triglycerides and LDL-c. Furthermore, nicotinic acid is also the most potent lipid lowering agent available that reduces Lp(a), an independent marker of cardiovascular risk. In a recent study patients with coronary artery disease had a 21% increase in HDL-c and a 13% decrease in triglycerides, and these beneficial effects on lipid status may have contributed to a stabilization or regression of carotid intima-media-thickness (IMT).The impact in patients with advanced atherosclerosis like peripheral artery disease (PAD) in unknown. The investigators hypothesized that nicotinic acid in addition to statin therapy may inhibit progression of peripheral arterial atherosclerosis. Therefore, the aim of the present randomized controlled trial is to investigate the effects of nicotinic acid (daily dose starting with 500 mg, up to 2000mg) in addition to simvastatin (40 mg daily) versus simvastatin (40mg daily) monotherapy in patients with low serum HDL-C levels and PAD with respect to changes of carotid and femoral IMT, changes of patients´ lipid status and occurrence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE).
Renal artery stenosis (RAS) usually refers to a disease of the large extra-renal arterial vessels and most frequently is caused by atherosclerotic obstructions. The prevalence of atherosclerotic RAS increases with age, male gender, traditional cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, smoking, hyperlipidemia) and atherosclerotic comorbidities like coronary artery or peripheral artery disease (PAD). A prevalence up to 40% has been reported in patients with PAD. Undoubtedly, atherosclerotic RAS is a progressive disease, as more than half of the patients exhibit an increasing degree of stenosis within five years after diagnosis, and one out of five patients with a critical stenosis (>60%) suffers renal atrophy and renal failure during this period. RAS may be treated conservatively by so called best medical treatment, surgically, or by endovascular interventions using balloon angioplasty and stenting. The purpose of the investigators study is to determine the incidence and the predictors of RAS in patients with PAD, and to compare the effect of renal artery stenting versus best medical treatment in patients with hypertension and ostial renal artery stenosis in a randomized controlled trial.
The study will be performed as a randomized, double blind trial (in respect of the primary end point) with treatment of the stenotic lesion using uncoated PTA-catheters as control group. 114 patients will be included in the trial at about 5 study centers. Follow-up includes control angiography after 6 and 18 months and clinical follow-up examinations up to 18 months. Primary objective: Efficacy of paclitaxel coated PTA balloons in inhibiting restenosis of below the knee arteries (late lumen loss) Secondary objective: Various angiographic and clinical efficacy measures, safety and tolerance of pacli-taxel coated PTA balloons in inhibiting restenosis of below the knee arteries Descriptive statistics, comparison by t-test, chi-square test for binary events 10.1 Descriptive statistics As far as applicable descriptive statistics will be applied to data and will be referring to individual changes versus baseline (predilatation or immediately postdilatation). The groups will be compared to each other testing the statistical significance of differences (p ≤ 0.05). Con-tinuous data will be expressed as mean ± standard deviation. Categorical variables will be compared using the chi-squared test, and continuous variables will be compared using Student's t test or ANOVA analysis. In addition to the assessment of the primary endpoint and the secondary endpoints a multi-variate analysis to investigate the influence of risk factors on the interventional outcome (interventional success, early restenosis/occlusion, LLL, stent integrity) and clinical outcomes will be performed. For this analysis the following factors will be considered: age, diabetes, neurological status (only Rutherford 5), lesion length, grade of dissection and calcification, reststenosis, number of run-off vessels, stent administration in the index lesion(s). 10.2 Estimated number of patients The primary endpoint of the study is late lumen loss (LLL) at 6 months evaluated by quantitative angiography. Because no data according this endpoint are available for both the control group and the group which will be treated with the paclitaxel coated balloon an assumption according the LLL at 6 months was made according the expectations of the principle investigator. An estimate for LLL as % of MLD in the control group is 50% and in the drug coated balloon group 30 %. The standard deviation is calculated to be 30% of LLL. A sample size of 37 patients in each group will allow the detection of a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) with 80% power. Based on the "Below study" which enrolled patients with comparable arterial lesions in Tuebingen and the data of the Basil study, it is estimated that 35% of the patients who will be enrolled in the study will not be available for follow-up investigations in order to calculate the MLD. In order to meet a statistical endpoint a total of 114 patients will be enrolled.
This is a prospective, multi-center, non-randomized trial to study one-year outcomes of the Wingspan system for the treatment of Chinese patients with symptomatic atherosclerotic severe intracranial stenosis.
Atherosclerosis is a disease in which the blood vessels become blocked by plaques (consisting of fat, calcification, and fibrous tissue), reducing blood flow to vital organs and tissues.Blockage of the carotid arteries in the neck is a major cause of stroke. One way of treating carotid atherosclerosis is with cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins. Statins have been shown to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 24-40% and risk pf stroke by 11-30%.The purpose of this study is to determine if short term treatment with atorvastatin causes early favorable changes in the plaques that block blood flow through the carotid arteries. These changes can be assessed 1) by taking pictures of the carotid arteries with MRI and Ultrasound before and after statin treatment, and 2) by special studies of the plaques removed from the carotid arteries by surgery.
To investigate the diagnostic performance of whole body magnetic resonance angiography (WB-MRA) using two different magnetic resonance contrast agents.