Heart disease covers conditions affecting the heart muscle, valves, rhythm, and blood vessels that supply it. Coronary artery disease remains the leading cause of death in the US, but treatments have improved dramatically—stents, bypass surgery, and medications like statins and PCSK9 inhibitors have cut death rates. Research now focuses on precision approaches, regenerative therapies, and devices that replace or repair failing hearts.
What's actually going on in research
Trials are testing gene therapies for inherited heart conditions, CRISPR editing for familial hypercholesterolemia, SGLT2 inhibitors originally developed for diabetes that reduce heart failure hospitalization, and devices that modulate heart rhythm or support failing hearts. Researchers are also studying heart regeneration using stem cells, prevention strategies in high-risk populations, and ways to reverse atherosclerosis buildup.
Heart failure medications
SGLT2 inhibitors like dapagliflozin and empagliflozin were developed for diabetes but now treat heart failure, reducing hospitalization and death. Trials are testing combinations with other drugs and expanding to more types of heart failure.
Gene therapy
Trials are testing one-time gene therapies for inherited heart muscle disease and familial hypercholesterolemia. Early results suggest these therapies may permanently lower cholesterol or strengthen heart muscle without ongoing medication.
Regenerative approaches
Studies are exploring whether stem cells or growth factors can repair heart muscle damaged by heart attacks. Some trials deliver cells directly into the heart during procedures or inject factors that stimulate the heart's own repair.
What to know before you search
Eligibility typically depends on the specific heart condition, severity of symptoms, ejection fraction for heart failure trials, cholesterol levels, prior treatments, and presence of other conditions like diabetes or kidney disease.
What types of trials are currently open
- Medication trials — Testing new drugs or combinations to prevent heart attacks, manage heart failure, lower cholesterol, or control blood pressure. Many compare new approaches to standard medications.
- Device trials — Testing pacemakers, defibrillators, heart pumps, or valve replacement devices. These often compare new devices to existing surgical or catheter-based options.
- Prevention trials — Testing strategies to prevent heart disease in people at high risk—through medications, lifestyle programs, or screening approaches.
- Gene and cell therapy trials — Testing one-time gene therapies for inherited conditions or cell therapies aimed at repairing heart damage.
- Procedure trials — Comparing surgical approaches, catheter techniques, or timing of interventions like bypass surgery or valve repair.
Recently added Heart Diseases trials
Support Your Heart, Phase 1
This is a pilot feasibility study designed to establish the feasibility and acceptability of the "Support Your Heart" (SYH) study's phone-based protocols regarding AHA's LE8, social isolation, loneliness, and stress. The age range for this intervention is 18-39, which is intended to reflect the transitional life period from adolescence to adulthood. Participants must also display at least two LE8 risk factors for cardiovascular disease (e.g., not enough sleep or physical activity; tobacco/nicotine product use; elevated body mass index; high cholesterol, high blood pressure, elevated HbA1c , and/or poor diet). Participants will receive weekly calls (averaging around 20-30 minutes each) from a SYH health coach in order to review key concepts, give personalized progress, and provide consistent feedback over the course of 12 weeks. SYH staff will measure improvement in AHA metrics as well as participant burden, acceptability, satisfaction, adherence, and retention. This research has the potential to create substantial public health impact by addressing cardiovascular health, social isolation, loneliness, and stress, all of which represent significant burdens to individual health.
Derivation and Validation of the Aortic Valve Echocardiographic Calcium Score to Confirm Severe Aortic Stenosis: the Echo-AVCS Study
The Echo-AVCS Study is an investigator-initiated, prospective, multicenter observational study designed to derive and validate an artificial intelligence (AI)-based echocardiographic aortic valve calcium score (Echo-AVCS) for confirming severe aortic stenosis (AS). Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the standard imaging modality for assessing AS severity; however, discrepancies between valve area and transvalvular gradient measurements may complicate diagnosis, particularly in low-flow or discordant AS presentations. Cardiac computed tomography (CT)-derived aortic valve calcium scoring is currently used to resolve diagnostic uncertainty, but it involves additional cost and radiation exposure. This study will enroll consecutive adult patients undergoing clinically indicated TTE and cardiac CT with calcium scoring performed within 3 months. Standardized echocardiographic images will be centrally analyzed using dedicated AI-based image segmentation and machine learning methods to quantify aortic valve calcification directly from TTE images. CT-derived aortic valve calcium score will serve as the reference standard. The primary objective is to derive and validate the Echo-AVCS score for identifying severe AS. Secondary objectives include determination of sex-specific diagnostic thresholds, correlation with CT calcium volume, association with symptoms and NYHA class, and evaluation of prognostic associations with aortic valve replacement, heart failure hospitalization, cardiovascular events, and mortality at 1-year follow-up.
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