Early Synergy

Early detection of obstructive coronary artery disease

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are responsible for approximately 17 million deaths yearly worldwide mainly driven by ischemic heart disease (IHD). Approximately 25% of subjects dying from CVD are due to sudden cardiac death (SCD) in the majority of cases caused by IHD. Unfortunately, in the large majority of patients, SCD and ACS occur suddenly without clear prior complaints and without a previous history of known CAD (previous reported angina, myocardial infarction, CABG or PCI). Most of these patients suffer from concealed IHD and some suffer from another from other chronic degenerative diseases (valvular or heart failure)2-4. The consequences can be disastrous: irreparable damage to the myocardium leading to chronic heart failure, persisting symptoms and restrictions or even be fatal.

The most effective approach to prevent SCD and ACS resides in early diagnosis of IHD followed by early treatment. IHD is clearly age related but one of the major challenges in early IHD diagnosis lies in identifying individuals with vague or presumably no symptoms and diagnostic limitations in primary care, including low sensitive/specific treadmill testing. Symptoms of IHD are known to be more often atypical in women and event typical symptoms are frequently misinterpretation by health care professionals. This underlines the critical role of an adequate screening program to efficiently identify all patients, both men and women, with significant IHD requiring revascularization or medical treatment.

Based on recent and the ongoing improvements in cardiac imaging techniques we believe that we can bring the next large step in reducing SCD and ACS rates by providing an evidence-based diagnostic algorithm to efficiently early diagnose IHD in individuals at high-risk but with vague, misinterpreted or presumably no symptoms at all.

Our objective is to early diagnose at least 25% more patients with IHD requiring guideline based treatment before they suffer an ACS or SCD.

We believe a population based screening approach to diagnose IHD in patients without clear signs and symptoms is the only feasible strategy to bring improvements mandated by the public and the Dutch Heart Foundation. Current improvements in cardiac imaging enable a two stage strategy to first exclude the 90% low risk subjects with CT scan and thereafter early diagnose IHD in the remaining ~10% high-risk group. Biomarkers and online-questionnaires may provide better insights in unrecognized symptoms. As a spin-off new algorithms based on questionnaires and biomarkers may be developed for optimal patient selection.

We believe our strategy will lead to the identification and treatment of IHD and avoids the sudden presentation with ACS or SCD resulting in myocardial damage or death. We aim to translate our findings of the clinical trial to an acceptable population based, national screening program comparable to those existing for several malignancies.

“We do have many cancer screenings programs in the Netherlands, but none for heart disease. Our ambition is to early diagnose heart disease and avoid the sudden presentation as heart attack or resuscitation.”

People involved

Principal investigators

Erik Lipsic

Cardiologist

Gabija Pundziute-Do Prado

Cardiologist
Team

Daan Ties

Alumnus

Press & publications

A Genotype-Guided Strategy for Oral P2Y12 Inhibitors in Primary PCI.

Claassens DMF, Vos GJA, Bergmeijer TO, Hermanides RS, van 't Hof AWJ, van der Harst P, Barbato E, Morisco C, Tjon Joe Gin RM, Asselbergs FW, Mosterd A, Herrman JR, Dewilde WJM, Janssen PWA, Kelder JC, Postma MJ, de Boer A, Boersma C, Deneer VHM, Ten Berg JM. N Engl J Med. 2019

view on publisher site

Coronary Angiography after Cardiac Arrest without ST-Segment Elevation.

Lemkes JS, Janssens GN, van der Hoeven NW, Jewbali LSD, Dubois EA, Meuwissen M, Rijpstra TA, Bosker HA, Blans MJ, Bleeker GB, Baak R, Vlachojannis GJ, Eikemans BJW, van der Harst P, van der Horst ICC, Voskuil M, van der Heijden JJ, Beishuizen A, Stoel M, Camaro C, van der Hoeven H, Henriques JP, Vlaar APJ, Vink MA, van den Bogaard B, Heestermans TACM, de Ruijter W, Delnoij TSR, Crijns HJGM, Jessurun GAJ, Oemrawsingh PV, Gosselink MTM, Plomp K, Magro M, Elbers PWG, van de Ven PM, Oudemans-van Straaten HM, van Royen N. N Engl J Med. 2019

view on publisher site

Computational quantitative flow ratio to assess functional severity of coronary artery stenosis.

Ties D, van Dijk R, Pundziute G, Lipsic E, Vonck TE, van den Heuvel AFM, Vliegenthart R, Oudkerk M, van der Harst P. Int J Cardiol. 2018

view on publisher site

Effect of metformin on left ventricular function after acute myocardial infarction in patients without diabetes: the GIPS-III randomized clinical trial.

Lexis CP, van der Horst IC, Lipsic E, Wieringa WG, de Boer RA, van den Heuvel AF, van der Werf HW, Schurer RA, Pundziute G, Tan ES, Nieuwland W, Willemsen HM, Dorhout B, Molmans BH, van der Horst-Schrivers AN, Wolffenbuttel BH, ter Horst GJ, van Rossum AC, Tijssen JG, Hillege HL, de Smet BJ, van der Harst P, van Veldhuisen DJ; GIPS-III Investigators. JAMA. 2014

view on publisher site

Enhancing cardiovascular artificial intelligence (AI) research in the Netherlands: CVON-AI consortium.

Benjamins JW, van Leeuwen K, Hofstra L, Rienstra M, Appelman Y, Nijhof W, Verlaat B, Everts I, den Ruijter HM, Isgum I, Leiner T, Vliegenthart R, Asselbergs FW, Juarez-Orozco LE, van der Harst P. Neth Heart J. 2019

view on publisher site

External links