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Center for Research-based Innovation, ProCardio will develop, test and validate new tools that can reliably predict an individual patient’s disease progression, and provide a longitudinal view of past and future care pathway options, enabling optimal disease treatment and prevention of disease progression.

Creating new digital solutions, which are necessary to more effectively exploit the wealth of data produced in modern cardiology, will require integrating rich patient data across all levels of healthcare, while harnessing clinical expertise combined with cutting edge ICT solutions. ProCardio will build on the achieved world-leading research and previous cooperation by developing novel machine learning methods to overcome the «black-box» nature of artificial intelligence. Linking these to physiological cardiac computer models will pave the way to reaching ProCardio’s ambitious goals.

We are continuing the successful collaboration between the partners from Center for Cardiological Innovation and also introdusing partners that can contribute knowledge and insight regarding data registries and databases, eHealth and data management, data science and AI infrastructure, while bringing several of the largest players in the cardiac medtech arena together with leading Norwegian and international research centres.

- The centers are important especially for new industries where there is a great need for research expertise and technology development. By focusing on long-term cooperation between business and research, we lay a good foundation for green transition and future employment, says John-Arne Røttingen, Chief Executive of the Research Council of Norway.

Read more about the SFI scheme and all the new SFI centres starting up in the autumn of 2020.

In order to stimulate excellent research and draw attention to the hospital's research activity, Oslo University Hospital reward outstanding publications every half-year. Six research groups were awarded for their excellent papers published during the second half-year of 2019 on May 29th. Each group received NOK 50.000 for use in further research. The prize winners then gave short presentations of their important findings.

The six selected articles are of especially high quality, and they present important finding on both-short and long-term scales. The works reflect the good quality and the interdisciplinarity that characterises several research environments at Oslo University Hospital. The research is a fundamental condition for the institution to maintain and strenghten the quality in the patient treatment.

"The award winning articles cover a wide range of research that will benefit future patients in the form of improved treatment methods, more precise diagnostics, better follow-up and better understanding of risk factors. It is important for the hospital to highlight and reward outstanding research and praise for the long-term efforts that lie behind it", says Director of Research, Innovation and Education Erlend B. Smeland.

This spring's awards ceremony was marked by the pandemic situation with only a limited number present. In return, the entire ceremony could be followed directly via web TV.

Link to YouTube video of the ceremony (38:40 min)

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The Center for Heart Failure Research (CHFR) was established in 2002 and has since then promoted the integration of high quality research from bench to bedside. Center members have a broad range of expertise, covering state-of-the-art gene technology, protein function, integrative physiology in pathophysiological models and clinical studies. This collective knowledge and active research collaboration has resulted in more than 200 scientific publications each year.

Several members of the Cardiac genetic diseases and sudden cardiac death research group presented interesting results from their recent studies. Two PhD fellows were awarded with the best poster prize; Eystein Skjølsvik for his work on “Exercise is a marker of impaired left ventricular function in patients with Lamin A/C mutations” and Monica Chivulescu for her work on “High penetrance and similar disease progression in probands and family members with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy”.

The later study was first published at the ESC Congress a month ago, in additon to being featured in Dagens Medisin, a Norwegian news outlet focusing on healthcare. In the interwiev with Dagens Medisin professor Kristina Haugaa tells that the results from this study suggest that family members of patients with ARVC should receive closer follow-up than they do now. Consultant Cardiologist Pål Tande from UNN (University Hospital of North Norway) agrees with prof. Haugaa that the study is a good argument for systematic screening of family members of patients with ARVC.

Previous best poster prize winner in the session Diagnostic and therapeutical strategies for cardiac disease postdoctoral fellow Øyvind H. Lie, was among the speakeres at this year's Symposium. Lie talked about Cardiac arrest in sports: Knowledge and misconceptions. Øyvind H. Lie has also written about the subject in, among others, Indremedisineren and Aftenposten.

Several researchers presented their latest studies at the annual Congress of European Society for Cardiology, the largest get-together of its kind. Elevating the Congress further this year was its conjunction with the World Congress of Cardiology, putting the spotlight on global cardiovascular health, highlighting differences in prevalence, clinical manifestations, prevention strategies, diagnostic modalities and management of cardiovascular diseases around the world, as stated on the ESC webpage.

PhD fellow Christine Rootwelt, MD, presented the study Apparent sex differences in risk of life-threatening events in arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy are related to exercise habits, which concluded that sex differences in arrhythmic risk in arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (AC) were attributable to higher exercise doses in male AC-patients. This highlights the importance of exercise assessment in these patients, and challenges the current opinion of male sex as a risk factor in itself. Risk stratification based on sex may underestimate the risk of physically active female AC-patients.

PhD fellow Monica Chivulescu, MD presented the study “Structural progression increases the risk of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy”. The study concluded that disease penetrance was fairly high in family members both at inclusion and during follow-up. Rate of progression was similar in probands and family members with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and structural progression was associated with higher incidence of severe arrhythmic event in arrhythmia free patients during follow-up.

The study was simultaneously published in the European Heart Journal (https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehz570)

Prof Perry Elliott from University College, London, United Kingdom and Benjamin Meder, University of Heidelberg, Germany talk about the study in a ESC Cardio Talk podcast available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, The Podcast App. (https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/What-we-do/news/ESC-Cardio-Talk)

GE Vingmed Ultrasound together with Oslo University Hospital, University of Oslo, KU Leuven, University of Maastrich, Jessa Hospital in Belgium and Medaphor were recently awarded 1.6 million euros for a Marie Curie project that will utilize artificial intelligence to diagnose a number of heart disorders. Several of the international partners in the new project have previously been central to CCI's international research collaboration. Over the years, the network and the exchange of skills have been strengthened through joint workshops, studies presented at both national and international conferences and, not least, the exchange of students and professionals.