Repolarization HeterogeneitY imaging for personalised Therapy of Heart ArrhythMia
- Michel HAISSAGUERRE, University of Bordeaux, Pessac (France)
- Igor EFIMOV, Northwestern University, Chicago (USA)
- Hugh CALKINS, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore (USA)
- Ruben CORONEL, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
- John ROGERS, Northwestern University,
- Bruce SMAILL, University of Auckland (New Zealand)
- Natalia TRAYANOVA, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (USA)
- Edward VIGMOND, LYRIC, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac (France)
- Mélèze HOCINI, LYRIC, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac (France)
- Olivier BERNUS, LYRIC, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac (France)
Even with all of the information provided by electrocardiograms and genetic profiling, todays’ physicians are unable to identify in advance those patients who will die from sudden cardiac death (SCD). Indeed, the precise mechanisms of human SCD are relatively poorly understood. The main objectives of this network are to use a detailed understanding of the mechanism of SCD to identify patients who are at risk for sudden death, and to develop novel patient-specific therapies to prevent it. Members of this network will focus on abnormal ventricular repolarization heterogeneity, measurable electrical events in the heart that are associated with a lethal disturbance of the normal heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation, believed to be the cause of sudden cardiac death in most patients. The network, composed of world-leading experts with highly complementary knowledge in cardiac repolarization and SCD, will see for the first comprehensive study of human repolarization abnormalities as a mechanism of SCD. Working simultaneously from the level of the single molecule to the individual patient, this network proposes to generate new clinical tools for characterizing abnormal repolarization, and to provide novel high-resolution imaging tools and risk stratification parameters for personalized preventive therapy.