Assessment of thrombotic status in atrial fibrillation v1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Assessment of thrombotic status in atrial fibrillation
IRAS ID
197443
Contact name
Diana Gorog
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
East and North Herts HS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disturbance. It affects 1 in 4 people by the time they reach the age of 80. The most devastating consequence of AF is stroke. This occurs when blood clots develop within the heart and then bits of this clot can break off and travel to the brain. To reduce the risk of stroke, most patients with AF take blood thinning medicines such as warfarin (or other oral anticoagulants) to prevent clots from forming. We know that although such medicines drastically reduce the risk of stroke in patients with AF, it does not eliminate the risk completely. We also realise that not every patient can tolerate anticoagulant medication due to the risk of increased bleeding. If we can find ways of further reducing the risk of stroke in patients with AF, this would have very important benefits for patients, carers and reducing socioeconomic burden.
Apart from blood thinning medications, patients with AF can be treated with strategies to stop the AF and restore and maintain the heart in normal rhythm. These procedures are performed according to standard clinical care, but their effect on blood stickiness is unknown. Our project will investigate whether such treatments, which restore normal rhythm can also reduce a patient's likelihood of forming blood clots.
We will take blood samples from patients before and after different therapies used to treat AF to assess the effects that these different treatment strategies have on the stickiness of an individual patient's blood. This would help us find which therapies are best to reduce the "stickiness of blood" to reduce risk of stroke.REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/0049
Date of REC Opinion
22 Jan 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion