Our cardiology research team is taking part in the BRITISH study. The study is led by Dr Andrew Flett, Cardiologist at the University of Southampton. You can watch him talk about the study here: https://youtu.be/-Ta7gZ7lTv8. The British Heart Foundation is funding the study. We are one of 35 research centres in the UK taking part. The study is for a very specific group of patients: patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy [1,2], severe systolic heart failure [3] and scarring of the heart tissue. Half of the trial participants will be fitted with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) [4] and the other half with an implantable loop recorder [5]. The trial team have produced a patient information video which explains the study and the reasoning behind it. You can watch it here: British Trial (explainmyprocedure.com). It is available in multiple languages.
Our team got the green light to recruiting last year in April and had a bit of a bumpy start. They only managed to start recruiting to the study in August and found themselves 4 months behind their target. Through determination and teamwork, we have not only caught up but surpassed our recruitment target, enrolling 30 patients (20 Randomised Arm and 10 Registry Arm)—an impressive one-third of all participants in the trial to date keeping Aberdeen Royal Infirmary second on the leaderboard! This is one third of all the patients recruited to the study so far! The British Heart Foundation recently published the news that the 100th patient was recruited in England. See the news story here Leicestershire man is 100th recruit in landmark heart failure clinical trial - BHF
The study requires a strong collaboration among the team of consultants, electrophysiologists, radiologists, and nurses. Well done team!
1 - Non-Ischemic – means not caused by reduced blood flow to the heart
2 - Cardiomyopathy - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
3 - Systolic heart failure also called Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) find out more here: Heart failure | British Heart Foundation - BHF