Acquired Von Willebrand Syndrome and angiodysplasia in LVAD patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Acquired Von Willebrand Syndrome and angiodysplasia in patients with a ventricular assist device studied with endothelial progenitor cells and videocapillaroscopy
IRAS ID
144690
Contact name
Anna Randi
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Patients with advanced heart failure that have been treated with the implantation of a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) have an increased rate of bleeding events. Abnormalities of a protein involved in coagulation (Von Willebrand Factor, VWF) and vascular changes caused by the LVAD, seem to play a major role. This study aims to analyse and understand deeply the mechanisms that cause this phenomenon. We will study patients that already have an LVAD in situ, patients that are going to have a new LVAD implanted and 4 control groups: patients that also suffer advanced heart failure but do not have a LVAD, patients with congenital abnormalities of the VWF, patients with acquired Von Willebrand Disease non-LVAD related and healthy controls.
In these patients we will perform clinical follow ups, blood tests and vascular studies:
- Blood tests will always coincide with other routine blood tests when possible. The blood sample will be used to confirm the VWF disorder and characterize the VWF abnormalities in detail. We will also isolate endothelial progenitor cells from the blood sample to investigate the interaction of VWF with them, using a unique laboratory technique that our group has developed: BOEC.
- We will study the vascular abnormalities of these patients with a non-invasive technique, videocapillaroscopy. Skin capillaries from the nail fold will be photographed and then the images will be analysed by an expert.
- Finally, clinical data from the routine clinical reviews of the patients will be recorded, specially bleeding events. They will be followed up during 1 year since the inclusion in the study.
The information obtained from the different groups will be compared in order to analyse the vascular and VWF abnormalities that can be attributed to the LVAD or the ones that can be related with other features of the patients.REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0980
Date of REC Opinion
10 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion