NCT00901212

Evaluation of Resynchronization Therapy for Heart Failure (EARTH)

Evaluation fo Resynchronization Therapy for Heart Failure (EARTH)

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 4
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 120 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Montreal Heart Institute · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Heart failure is a major health problem in Canada. Recent advances in medical and device therapy have helped to reduce the morbidity and mortality of patients with this problem. Among these treatments, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has very recently been shown to be effective to improve functional class, quality of life and exercise tolerance of the patients with the most severe symptoms of heart failure and a prolonged duration of the QRS on the 12-lead Electrocardiography (ECG).

Detailed description

Resynchronization of the failing ventricle is currently achieved by pacing the left and right ventricles simultaneously with specialized electrodes and a cardiac stimulator. However, controversy persists concerning the optimal configuration for cardiac pacing in these patients. Right ventricular pacing alone has been shown to be deleterious in some patient populations. The benefits of biventricular pacing in heart failure patients may be due primarily to left ventricular stimulation and may, in some patients, be decreased by the presence of simultaneous RV stimulation. Preliminary data from our own animal work suggest that in the majority of cases, LV stimulation alone is better than RV stimulation, and that BiV stimulation represents an intermediary situation between LV and RV stimulation.

Conditions

• Heart Failure

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Device programming	6-month period

Timeline

• Start date: 2003-10-01
• Primary completion: 2010-02-01
• Completion: 2010-02-01
• First posted: 2009-05-13
• Last updated: 2012-05-08

Locations

11 sites across 1 country: Canada