A Review of Current Heart Failure Apps

Background: Heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Canada, with tremendous economic impacts on the healthcare system. Currently, there are several smartphone based heart failure (HF) apps available for patients. These apps provide information to patients regarding HF, and how to monitor and manage their condition. This review describes the current literature on HF apps, and describes the features offered by these apps. Methods and Results: Peer-reviewed literature was searched and revealed only a limited number of studies (8) related to HF apps, including HeartMapp, SUPPORT-HF and CardioManager.  A Google-based grey literature search was conducted, and Google Play and the Apple Store were also searched to identify additional HF-related apps. These searches revealed several other HF-related apps (total 11), the features of which are described in the current review. Conclusion: This review will help healthcare providers select apps for themselves and recommend HF apps to their patients that provide the most suitable disease and management information and monitoring capability. The insight will also help software developers design apps in the future that will provide better support to patients with HF and help the healthcare providers monitor their condition better

7. Prevalence of CAD in asymptomatic type II diabetics, using MPI as screening tool. Single center cross sectional study from KSA

Clinical research. Presentation Type: Oral presentation. Introduction: In patients with type 2 diabetes coronary artery disease (CAD) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity. Knowing the elevated risk of cardiovascular events and high prevalence of silent myocardial ischemia, screening asymptomatic diabetic patients-yet controversial-is appealing. The aim of the study is to measure the prevalence of silent ischemia in asymptomatic type-II diabetic patient with at least one or more of the given risk factors i.e. Hypertension, Dyslipidemia, Smoking, obesity and F/H of CAD. Myocardial perfusion Imaging is a sensitive test to look for myocardial ischemia. Methodology: This is a single center cross sectional study, approved by the institutional review board of the hospital. The study subjects were type-II diabetes of >5 years duration, asymptomatic, having one or more of the risk factors; The subjects were screened for CAD using myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Further intervention or treatment was left to primary physician in case of positive results. Results: A total of 137 patients-after obtaining an informed consent-underwent MPI. There were no complications during the tests. All of the patients tolerated the test well. ECGs were obtained. Two independent reviewers (blinded to each other’s findings) reviewed tests. A test was considered ”Positive” only if both reviewers results matched (in distribution, severity and size). Of 137 cohort, 21(15%) showed perfusion defects consistent with significant myocardial ischemia in a specific coronary artery distribution. Average sum stress score (SSS) was 5 (range 4–8, mode 4). Of the whole group, patients with higher HbA1C had the positive MPI. Results of positive patients were relayed to their primary physicians. Conclusion: Despite higher rate of diabetes in Saudi Arabia, asymptomatic Diabetics have a lower than expected incidence of active CAD. There would be a need to test this notion further. This would require more studies to confirm our findings in Saudi population

The value of open-source clinical science in pandemic response: lessons from ISARIC

International audienc

ISARIC-COVID-19 dataset: A Prospective, Standardized, Global Dataset of Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19

The International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) COVID-19 dataset is one of the largest international databases of prospectively collected clinical data on people hospitalized with COVID-19. This dataset was compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic by a network of hospitals that collect data using the ISARIC-World Health Organization Clinical Characterization Protocol and data tools. The database includes data from more than 705,000 patients, collected in more than 60 countries and 1,500 centres worldwide. Patient data are available from acute hospital admissions with COVID-19 and outpatient follow-ups. The data include signs and symptoms, pre-existing comorbidities, vital signs, chronic and acute treatments, complications, dates of hospitalization and discharge, mortality, viral strains, vaccination status, and other data. Here, we present the dataset characteristics, explain its architecture and how to gain access, and provide tools to facilitate its use