Approved Research

Defining novel measures of left ventricular contractility and their association with the risk of incident cardiovascular disease.

Lay summary

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a common condition characterised by symptoms of breathlessness, fatigue, and fluid retention. CHF also reduces life expectancy and is associated with increased risk of hospitalisation. CHF is currently classified according to left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) - the percentage of blood pumped by the heart during each heartbeat. LVEF is used to determine which patients may benefit from medications to improve symptoms and survival, as those with 'normal' heart function do not appear to derive benefit from these therapies. We have shown that this method of to assessing heart function does not reliably predict the future risk of adverse outcomes, especially amongst those who have 'normal' heart function. However, when using novel measures of heart function which incorporate the 'loading conditions' (the force the heart has to work against) this better reflects future risk and identifies around one third of patients with 'normal' heart function who might stand to benefit from receiving medications currently only given to those with impaired heart function. We wish to understand the normal values for cardiac contractility in a healthy population. We will then compare the measurement of heart contractility to LVEF in how it identifies different populations, and how these measures predict the development of cardiovascular disease in the future.