Our Path to Renewal In preparation for our 2020-2025 Network renewal, we have launched the following grant funding opportunities. For additional details, guides and required application forms, please click on the links below each description.   Strategic Research Grant (SRG) Deadline Extended to January 28, 2019 The Strategic Research Grant (SRG) program is intended to support small and large-scale multidisciplinary multi-sectoral research projects that are presented in the context of a program of research that is aligned with the strategic priorities of the network. The purpose of the Full Application (FA) is to fully articulate your desire to pursue an area of research that is aligned with the vision of the Network and to allow reviewers to identify whether your request fits the criteria intended for this competition (see below for specific criteria). The Full Application will be due on Monday, January 14, 2019, with notice of awards by November 2019. https://canetinc.ca/research   Major Industry-Partnered Research Grant (MIRG) Deadline Extended to January 28, 2019 The Major Industry-Partnered Research Grant (MIRG) program is designed to support new transdisciplinary research Projects which are primarily industry focused and that are aligned with the Network’s strategic priorities. Up to $200,000 per year for three years is available for projects that...

Dr. Ratika Parkash is getting closer to 120,000 patients across Canada. Parkash’s work is aimed at patients who live with pacemakers or implantable defibrillators – both, cardiac implantable electronic devices or CIEDs. Pacemakers help control abnormal heart rhythm. Implantable defibrillators deliver life-saving shocks to patients who are at risk of irregular and potentially fatal heart rhythms. “We want to deliver more efficient pacemaker and implantable cardiac device care across Canada, virtually eliminating in-clinic visits for most patients,” Parkash says. CIEDs, like any other devices, need regular maintenance in order to function properly and detect atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmia more effectively. Patients often visit specialized device clinics at least twice a year, sometimes more frequently. For 19 per cent of Canadians living in rural communities, they have to travel long distances to reach these clinics and healthcare facilities. Dr. Paul MacDonald, a cardiologist at Cape Breton Regional Hospital says, “We are over 400 km away from the teaching centre where these devices are implanted. If they do need to be checked or monitored, it can mean, for example, a five-hour drive, or an overnight stay. Often patients’ families have to go, or patients are admitted to hospital and require ambulance...

At the heart of CANet’s quest to combat sudden cardiac death lies a few millimeters of cardiac muscle. For Dr. Jamie Manlucu, it will be enough. With CANet’s help, she is refining a groundbreaking technology that may give 40 per cent of Canadians suffering from advanced heart failure a second lease of life. The project is a crucial step towards CANet’s strategic goal to reduce sudden cardiac death cases in Canada by 10 per cent. Manlucu, a CANet Early Career Investigator, and professor at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, recently received CANet’s Major Industry-Partnered Research Grant totaling $400,000, for her project, ‘Resynchronization For Ambulatory Heart Failure Trial – LV Endocardial Approach (RAFT-LVendo)’ . Advanced heart failure often results from impaired electrical activation of cardiac muscles. In the conventional approach – Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) – doctors place pacemaker wires at specific areas of the heart to deliver precisely timed electric shocks that restore normal cardiac rhythm. CRT has been a success story for patients with acute heart abnormalities. For those with less severe cases – who count among Canada’s most vulnerable populations at risk for ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death – it has not worked. Enter LVendocardial...

CANet has helped Dr. Ian Steill share an important fact with hospitals across Canada – the majority of AAFF patients can be effectively and safely treated in the emergency room and then discharged to return home. Steill, a CANet Investigator, clinical epidemiologist, and emergency medicine physician at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, received CANet’s Strategic Research Grant totaling $718,600 and $3 million in matching funds for his project, Decreasing Hospital Admissions from the Emergency Department for Acute Atrial Fibrillation. The tour-de-force of Steill’s CANet-funded project – the first-of-its-kind collection of guidelines for emergency room (ER) physicians that standardizes AAFF treatment across Canada, and helps them provide a higher quality of care for AAFF patients. Most emergency rooms in Canada treat AAFF – abnormally rapid heart rates that have been present for less than seven days and are often disabling to most patients – by using drugs or electricity to help return the heart to its normal ‘sinus’ rhythm. The procedure is known as cardioversion. Patients are usually discharged soon thereafter. “We have seen more and more Canadian ER physicians willing to cardiovert AAFF patients and then discharge them directly home from the ER,” Steill says. In fact, Steill’s ER group...

Calgary, AB, June 11, 2018 – Paramedics in Calgary and surrounding areas are now able to increase capacity in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system, thanks to the CANet-funded project, CASMER, Community Alternatives for Syncope Management in the Emergency Room. CANet investigator, CASMER project lead and professor at University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine Dr. Satish Raj, together with a team of medical researchers, doctors, and paramedics, recently launched CASMER in Calgary and surrounding areas within a radius of 45-60 minutes. “Most patients with low-risk syncope, otherwise known as a temporary loss of consciousness or fainting, have excellent outcomes because the diagnoses – vasovagal syncope and initial orthostatic hypotension – are non-life threatening and thus, do not merit a trip to the hospital,” Dr. Raj says. Both, however, are continually recurring features of low-risk syncope, and alarm patients to such a degree that it often prompts unnecessary trips to emergency departments where tests and costs rapidly escalate. Even worse, often patients inconveniently have to wait several hours to be seen, adding to the overcrowding in the emergency departments. With CASMER, paramedics are now using simple checklists to determine whether syncope patients are low-risk or not. If they are low-risk, paramedics...

As far back as 2005, Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy felt that the outcomes of adults with syncope seen in Canadian Emergency Departments (EDs) needed to be more fully investigated. So he led the study Outcomes in Canadian Emergency Department Syncope Patients – Are We Doing a Good Job? to see what could be learned. The study, published in 2012, came to the conclusion that ED physicians should be aware of the significant risk for serious adverse outcomes in syncope patients after seven days, and that future studies should be done to develop a risk-stratification system to identify which ED syncope patients need to be admitted, and which ones can be safely followed up in an outpatient clinic. This led Dr. Thiruganasambandamoorthy to develop the Optimal Management of Low-Risk Syncope Patients program. This program looks at all aspects of syncope care at both patient and health system levels and will impact patients, communities at large, EMS workers, and hospital EDs. One project within the program is the validation of the Canadian Syncope Risk Score (CSRS), which will be used to standardize ED syncope management and identify low-risk patients for early disposition. Using the CSRS, ED physicians can predict 30-day serious outcomes for...

Among patients in septic shock and other forms of distributive shock, the addition of the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin to standard anti-hypotensive treatment is associated with a lower risk for atrial fibrillation (AF), researchers report. In a meta-analysis that included 23 randomized clinical trials involving more than 3,000 patients in distributive shock, adding vasopressin to catecholamine vasopressors led to a statistically significant reduction in AF risk (relative risk 0.77, 95% CI 0.67 to 0.88). Sepsis is the most common cause of distributive shock, but the condition can also occur after cardiovascular surgery, spinal cord injury, anaphylaxis, and prolonged shock. AF is a common adverse event among patients in distributive shock, and is associated with an increased risk for death, morbidity, and longer hospital stays. The endogenous peptide hormone vasopressin can be used as a vasopressor, and its use may result in adverse events including AF, organ injury, and death by reducing the requirement for catecholamines. “The theoretical basis for vasopressin administration stems from research identifying relative vasopressin deficiency in patients with distributive shock,” William McIntyre, MD, of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues, wrote in the study online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In an effort to determine...

Syncope research pioneer Dr. Robert Sheldon has teamed up with patients across Canada to produce cutting-edge treatments through the execution of a first-in-world trial. Sheldon, a CANet Investigator, and professor at University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine received a CANet Strategic Research Grant totaling $249,929 for his project, ‘Assessment of Norepinephrine Transport Inhibition to Prevent Recurrent Vasovagal Syncope.’ The CANet-funded project has helped doctors and researchers answer critical yet often over-looked questions such as – what is the acceptable threshold of side effects and discomfort for patients in exchange for them taking drugs for the treatment of syncope? How often and when are patients willing to take pills? Currently, there are no proven medical treatments for syncope. “We have to make it worthwhile for them to take the drug,” Sheldon says. “What drives us is patient involvement. It’s a complete eye-opener and the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.” The answers to these questions are critical in shaping and defining the way Sheldon and his teams conduct clinical trials of Atomoxetine, and increase the chances of a successful trial. Atomoxetine is an experimental drug projected to reduce the occurrence and suffering of syncope in Canada, decrease emergency room visit and empower...

Syncope is a transient loss of consciousness, described as fainting or passing out. It usually relates to a temporary insufficient flow of blood to the brain. Syncope is a common condition, which can occur at any age and in people without other medical problems. Neurally mediated syncope (NMS), the most frequent cause of fainting, is benign. It is most common in children or young adults but can occur at any age. If this type of syncope is prolonged, it can trigger a seizure. Cardiac syncope is caused by a heart or blood vessel condition that affects blood flow to the brain. These conditions can include arrhythmia, structural heart disease, blockages in the cardiac blood vessels, valve disease, aortic stenosis, blood clot, or heart failure. A challenge with syncope is to accurately identify low-risk syncope patients in the emergency department avoiding hospitalization, better still, have paramedics identify these patients and avoid going to the hospital altogether. Click here to view ‘On Track: Syncope’

Sometimes, all it takes to make a difference is a handshake, a smile and the words ‘tell me about yourself.’ Mary Runte is reaching out to arrhythmia patients – including families and support groups – to document and share their experiences of living and dealing with the illness. Runte, a CANet Investigator, Chair of the CANet Patient Advisory Committee, and professor at University of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Management, recently received CANet’s dedicated Social Sciences Grant totaling $240,000, for her project, ‘Mapping the Arrhythmia Patient Journey’ which documents the social, emotional and psychological impact of arrhythmia in patients. Her research will provide Canada’s first in-depth and comprehensive record of the patient experience of arrhythmia through the perspective of the patients themselves. From this information, doctors will be able to design more efficient, effective and holistic interventions that will take into account patient priorities. It is also essential to take into account the economic, social, and psychological impacts of the illness in patients suffering from arrhythmias. For example, doctors are often unaware of arrhythmia’s effect on a patient’s employment situation, family responsibilities, and lifestyle choices. “Real world measures are important when real-life problems are being investigated,” Runte says. She is an arrhythmia patient...