Project summary:
ICD shocks have been associated with progression of heart failure, increased mortality and a detrimental effect on the quality of life. The recent MADIT-RIT and ADVANCE-III trials showed that simple programming changes of the devices could reduce the amount of inappropriate and unnecessary ICD therapy with up to 70%. However, many patients are still at high risk of ICD therapy and receive antiarrhythmic pharmacotherapy as a consequence. Previous studies have investigated how different cardiovascular drugs affect the risk of arrhythmias; however there is a relative paucity of studies investigating the effect of combination of drugs and different dosages of the specific drugs on the risk of ICD therapy and long-term mortality. The goal of this project is to investigate how conventional anti-arrhythmic as well as non-anti-arrhythmic cardiovascular pharmacotherapy, alone and in combination, influences the risk of ICD therapy and mortality, and how the delivery of ICD therapy translates into risk of mortality.
The project is anchored at the Department of Cardiology, Gentofte University Hospital, Denmark.
Project participants:
Professor Gunnar H. Gislason, MD, PhD
Michael Vinther, MD, PhD
Christian Jons, MD, PhD
Anne-Christine Ruwald, MD, PhD-student
