CLINICAL CARDIOVASCULAR RESEARCH

In a bygone era, medical therapies were devised on an empirical or serendipitous basis and promulgated on anecdotal evidence. In other words, apothecaries or physicians or surgeons applied a theoretical idea, or came across a treatment that seemed to work, and passed the good news on to their colleagues, often by word of mouth. These therapies were never tested and often did more harm than good.

In the lifetimes of a lot of us, patients who had sustained heart attacks were put on complete bed rest for six weeks. We now know that this was not a very good idea, though it must have seemed reasonable to logically minded people at that time. After all, the heart is a muscle, and when you injure a muscle, you rest it. Now new ideas and new drugs have to be critically appraised and proven in clinical studies and all large hospitals undertake these studies, not least Craigavon Area Hospital.

Ongoing studies range across the whole spectrum of cardiovascular medicine, from the treatment of acute heart attacks and heart failure to the treatment of high blood pressure and high cholesterol. All are strictly regulated by the government and participation in them is completely voluntary. Prospective entrants into every study are given full information about it in verbal and written form. They are given a cooling-off period before making any decision.

The well being of the patient is the over-riding concern in every study and he or she is very carefully assessed by a cardiologist before being allowed to participate in the study. Sometimes there is a queue of patients waiting to get into a study so they may not be able to enrol immediately. Throughout the study, which may be short-term lasting a month, to long term lasting five years or more, patients are seen and re-assessed regularly (usually at three to six month intervals in the longer studies) and any heart or heart-related problems that arise, whether related to the study or not, are dealt with. Visits are arranged at mutually convenient times and take place in the cardiovascular studies suite attached to the cardiology unit in Ward 1 North. Patients participating in a clinical study are free to leave the study at any time, although in practice, this rarely happens.