Stroke Clinical Trials

Aims: The aim of this project is to provide establish clinically and immunologically well-characterized cohort of patients after MI This will aid in identifying novel prognostic cellular and humoral biomarkers that may be used to identify patients at a high inflammatory and immune risk and to guide clinical management. Furthermore, these mediators, in the future, may be targeted by novel antigen-specific immunomodulatory approaches. Patients with myocardial infarction (STEMI and NSTEMI) will be recruited after PCI within 24h and receive a structured follow-up. Clinical read-outs include a detailed and standardized patient history, clinical examination, standard blood work, coronary angiography, ECG, echocardiography and for subgroups, MRI. Patients will present for study visits at 6 weeks, 3 months and 12 months after the initial event. Blood will be sampled at the inclusion and during follow-up visits. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells and plasma will be stored at the Cardiovascular BioBank (CVBB) and FREEZE, both institutions at the University Hospital in Freiburg. Major adverse cardiac events (myocardial infarction, stroke, hospitalization for heart failure, cardiovascular death) will be recorded using telephone interviews and standardized queries to the local authorities. Several laboratory read-outs are planned including flow cytometry, mass cytometry, single cell RNA sequencing, T cell and B cell receptor sequencing and bulk-RNA-sequencing. In an initial approach we aim to recruit 400 patients with MI, of which we expect ≈40 to develop ischemic cardiomyopathy. Differences in immunological profiles between patients that develop MI and a propensity-matched control group will then be analyzed and correlated with clinical outcome data.