Cardiac MRI during exercise in pulmonary hypertension
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The non invasive assessment of biventricular volumes and function in healthy volunteers and in patients with pulmonary hypertension using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging during exercise
IRAS ID
163063
Contact name
Andrew Peacock
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Golden Jubilee National Hospital / National Waiting Times Board
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Pulmonary hypertension ( PH ) is a rare disease in which there is increased pressure in the pulmonary arteries that results in progressive right heart failure and death. The techniques that are available in diagnosing and monitoring of this condition have significant limitations. Echocardiography is a poor indicator of identifying changes in right ventricular volume and function, right heart catheterisation which is the gold standard investigation is invasive while exercise testing is of limited value in patients with compromised exercise capacity and is affected by other variables apart from pulmonary hypertension.
Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging provides accurate information regarding right ventricular volumes as well as function. These measures provide prognostic information regarding disease course and response to treatment. In a significant proportion of patients substantial levels of symptoms are associated with only subtly deranged cardiac measures. The sensitivity of Cardiac MRI can be increased with the addition of a stress stimulus such as limb raising. There is also evidence that exercise induced PH is indeed an early but clinically important stage in the development of PH and subsequent right heart failure. This may prove to be an important stage to commence treatment and was confirmed in the EARLY study showing benefit in disease targeted therapy at an early stage in patients with PH. [1]
Recent studies have shown that real time cardiac MRI can be used to provide highly reproducible and accurate measures of right heart volume and function during exercise in healthy volunteers. In this study we aim to perform cardiac MRI in healthy volunteers ( pilot study to define protocol ) and patients with pulmonary hypertension during exercise to assess biventricular volumes and function.1. Galie, N., et al., Treatment of patients with mildly symptomatic pulmonary arterial hypertension with bosentan (EARLY study): a double-blind, randomised controlled trial. Lancet, 2008. 371(9630): p. 2093-100.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
14/WS/1132
Date of REC Opinion
20 Feb 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion