Jesper Hastrup Svendsen

Rigshospitalet | rigshospitalet · Department of Cardiology

Background Neuropsychiatric side effects of cardiac drugs such as nervousness, mood swings and agitation may be misinterpreted as symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety in cardiac patients is highly prevalent and associated with poor outcomes, thus an accurate identification is essential. The objectives were to: (I) describe the possible neuropsychiatric sid...

Ventricular arrhythmia (VA) is a leading cause of sudden death and health deterioration. Recent advances in predictive analytics and wearable technology for behavior assessment show promise but require further investigation. Yet, previous studies have only assessed other health outcomes and monitored patients for short durations (7–14 days). This s...

Background Elderly individuals occupy an increasing part of the general population. Conventional and speckle-tracking transthoracic echocardiography may help guide risk stratification in these individuals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential utility of conventional and speckle-tracking echocardiography in the screening of cardia...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Other. Main funding source(s): The LOOP Study was supported by Innovation Fund Denmark [grant number 12-1352259], The Research Foundation for the Capital Region of Denmark, The Danish Heart Foundation [grant number 11-04-R83-A3363-22625], Aalborg University Talent Management Program, Arvid Nilssons...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – EU funding. Main funding source(s): Horizon2020 Introduction Wearable devices are gaining interest in the clinical assessment of physical behavior as a marker of disease severity. With the increased use, patient willingness and adherence will be increasingly important. As part of...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – EU funding. Main funding source(s): European Community’s 7th Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 Background The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is an established therapy for the prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in high-risk heart failure patients. However, impro...

Background: Pressure-strain loop analyses is a noninvasive technique capable of evaluating myocardial work. Reference values are needed to benchmark these myocardial work indices for clinical practice. Methods: Healthy participants from a general population study were used to establish reference values for global work index (GWI), global constru...

Background: Infections of cardiac implantable devices (CIEDI) have poor outcomes despite improvement in lead extraction (TLE) procedures. Methods: To explore the influence of CIEDI on the outcomes of TLE and the differences between patients with systemic (Sy) vs. local (Lo) CIEDI, we performed a sub-analysis of the EORP ELECTRa (European Lead Ex...

Objectives In this extended follow-up study of the DANISH (Danish Study to Assess the Efficacy of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators in Patients with Non-ischemic Systolic Heart Failure on Mortality) trial, adding 4 years of additional follow-up, we examined the effect of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation according to b...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. BACKGROUND Small studies have suggested that poor regional myocardial function may be associated with malignant arrhythmias, in particular around the inferior-posterior region. We tested this hypothesis in a subgroup of patients from the DANISH trial. METHODS From two centers, 317 patients w...

Aims: Prophylactic implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) reduce mortality in patients with ischaemic heart failure (HF), whereas the effect of ICD in patients with non-ischaemic HF is less clear. We aimed to investigate the association between concomitant coronary atherosclerosis and mortality in patients with non-ischaemic HF and the effe...

Background: Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most prevalent sustained cardiac arrhythmia, responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality. The heterogenic and complex pathogenesis of AF remains poorly understood, which contributes to the current limitation in effective treatments. We aimed to identify rare genetic variants associated with AF in...

Four-dimensional (4D) echocardiography may provide more accurate estimations of left atrial (LA) volumes than 2-dimensional (2D) measures. We sought to compare the concordance of a novel 4D LA quantification software versus 2D echocardiography against cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR). This was a multimodality imaging substudy of a randomized clinic...

Aims: Left atrial (LA) fibrosis is a hallmark of atrial cardiomyopathy, and non-invasive surrogate measures of LA fibrosis are therefore needed. We investigated the association between four-dimensional (4D) echocardiographic LA measures and LA fibrosis. Methods and results: A multimodality imaging substudy was performed in a randomized clinical...

Background: Identification of patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy who benefit from prophylactic implantation of a cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) remains an unmet clinical need. We hypothesized that periodic repolarization dynamics (PRD), a marker of repolarization instability associated with sympathetic activity, could be used to identify p...

Background: The Danish Study to Assess the Efficacy of Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators (ICDs) in Patients with Non-ischemic Systolic Heart Failure on Mortality (DANISH) found that primary-prevention ICD implantation was not associated with an overall survival benefit in patients with non-ischemic systolic heart failure during a median follo...

Background: Atrial remodeling is associated with future atrial fibrillation (AF) and stroke. AF has been associated with cognitive impairment and cerebral white matter lesions. We wished to investigate the possible direct association between atrial remodeling and cerebrovascular disease in patients with and without AF documented by implantable loo...

Introduction Patients with cardiac disease often experience anxiety (prevalence about 20%–25%) and have a doubled mortality risk when suffering from anxiety compared with patients without anxiety. This calls for interventions aiming to reduce anxiety. Methods and analysis The Heart & Mind Trial consists of three parts: (1) screening of all hospita...

Aims: Comorbid psychiatric disorders and the use of psychotropic medication are common among cardiac patients and have been found to increase the risk of mortality. The aims of this study were: (i) to describe the use of psychotropic medication among cardiac patients with and without symptoms of anxiety, (ii) to estimate the association between us...

Introduction: AV nodal re-entry tachycardia (AVNRT) is the most common type of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. At present, the underlying etiology of AVNRT is unclear. Hypothesis: In a genome-wide association study (GWAS), we aimed to identify common genetic variants associated with AVNRT. Methods: We performed a GWAS meta-analysis of Dani...

Background Global longitudinal strain (GLS) is a sensitive marker of myocardial dysfunction and atrial reservoir function. We sought to evaluate its value for predicting atrial fibrillation (AF) in the general population.Methods Participants from the Copenhagen City Heart Study examined with echocardiography, including speckle tracking analyses, we...

Background Current implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) devices are equipped with a device-embedded accelerometer capable of capturing physical activity (PA). In contrast, wearable accelerometer-based methods enable the measurement of physical behaviour (PB) which encompasses not only PA but also sleep behaviour, sedentary time and rest-act...

Background Atrial remodeling and atrial fibrillation (AF) have both been associated with cerebrovascular lesions. We wished to investigate the possible direct association between atrial remodeling and cerebrovascular disease including white matter lesions and lacunar infarcts in patients with and without atrial fibrillation (AF) as documented by im...

Background/Introduction Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and it is associated with serious complications, such as stroke, heart failure, and premature death. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have associated more than 140 genomic loci with AF; however, these studies predominantly include subjects of Europ...

Purpose Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia. It carries a large healthcare burden and is associated with serious complications. The arrhythmia has a substantial genetic component and is associated with several structural genes, including the gene TTN. A recent large genome-wide association study on AF found an associati...

Background Patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) are at high risk of malignant ventricular arrhythmias. The use of remote ICD monitoring, wearable devices and patient-reported outcomes generate large volumes of potential valuable data. Artificial intelligence-based methods can be applied to develop personalized prediction mo...

Background Fascicular heart blocks can progress to complete heart blocks, but this risk has not been evaluated in a large general population. Objective To investigate the association between various types of fascicular blocks diagnosed by electrocardiogram (ECG) readings and the risk of incident higher degree atrioventricular block (AVB), syncope,...

Aims The aim of this study was to investigate the association between within-individual changes in physical activity and onset of atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods and results A total of 1410 participants from the general population (46.2% women, mean age 74.7 ± 4.1 years) with risk factors but with no prior AF diagnosis underwent continuous mon...

Introduction: Whether detailed genetic information contributes to risk stratification of patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) remains uncertain. Pathogenic genetic variants in some genes seem to carry a higher risk for arrhythmia and earlier disease onset than others, but comparisons between variants in the same gen...

Background Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is predominantly caused by desmosomal genetic variants, and clinical hallmarks include arrhythmias and systolic dysfunction. We aimed at studying the impact of the implicated gene(s) on the disease course. Methods The Nordic ARVC Registry holds data on a multinational cohort of ARVC...

Background: There is limited data on the association of membranous septum (MS) morphology and transcatheter heart valve (THV) implantation depth, and the development of new conduction abnormalities after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI). Aims: To describe the morphology of the MS and predict the risk of new CA after TAVI based on th...

Aims To study the relationship between subclinical atrial fibrillation (AF) and changes in cognitive function in a large cohort of individuals with stroke risk factors. Methods : Individuals with no prior AF diagnosis but with risk factors for stroke were recruited to undergo annual cognitive assessment with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA...

Background It is unknown whether screening for atrial fibrillation and subsequent treatment with anticoagulants if atrial fibrillation is detected can prevent stroke. Continuous electrocardiographic monitoring using an implantable loop recorder (ILR) can facilitate detection of asymptomatic atrial fibrillation episodes. We aimed to investigate whet...

Aims Left atrial (LA) volume and function impose significant impact on cardiovascular pathogenesis if compromised. We aimed at investigating the genetic architecture of LA volume and function using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging data. Methods and results We used the UK Biobank, which is a large prospective population study with available phe...

Objective To investigate the incidence of cardiac arrhythmias at six months following traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) and to compare the prevalence of arrhythmias between participants with cervical and thoracic SCI. Design A prospective observational study using continuous twenty-four-hour Holter monitoring. Setting Inpatient rehabilitation un...

Aims: Treatment with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) is a cornerstone for prevention of sudden cardiac death in arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC). We aimed at describing the complications associated with ICD treatment in a multinational cohort with long-term follow-up. Methods and results: The Nordic ARVC regis...

Background: Mental distress is reported internationally among patients with cardiac disease. A Danish survey found that 25% of patients with cardiac disease experienced symptoms indicating anxiety and that anxiety was associated with an increased risk of death. Aim: The aims of this study were to (1) compare cause of death patterns among decease...

EQ-5D is a generic instrument to measure health-related quality of life. In 2009, a new version, EQ-5D-5L, was introduced as an attempt to reduce ceiling effects and improve sensitivity to small changes over time. The objective of this study was to assess the measurement properties of the EQ-5D-5L instrument compared to the EQ-5D-3L instrument in a...

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) reduces the risk of ventricular arrhythmias (VA) in heart failure (HF) patients with left bundle branch block (LBBB) while the effect is less clear among non-LBBB patients. This study aimed to investigate if absence of LBBB features whether by echocardiography or strict ECG criteria would identify patients at...

The World Heart Federation (WHF) commenced a Roadmap initiative in 2015 to reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease and resultant burgeoning of healthcare costs. Roadmaps provide a blueprint for implementation of priority solutions for the principal cardiovascular diseases leading to death and disability. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one o...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – EU funding. Main funding source(s): Eurostars Introduction Patients at a high risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) benefit from an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). However, they remain at a high risk of (inappropriate) shocks, heart failure, mortality and psychological...

Background Cardiac arrhythmias are considered a prominent phenomenon in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH). Older studies reported that 8% to 35% of patients with PH had supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), associated with adverse outcomes. Still, these arrhythmias have only been investigated via short-term monitoring or limited electrocardio...

Background Cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) in patients with symptomatic heart failure and left bundle branch block (LBBB) can be achieved with His-bundle pacing correcting the bundle branch block (His-CRT). The present study is the largest randomised study between His-CRT and biventricular pacing (BiV-CRT) to date. Methods and results Fift...

Aims Patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) have increased prevalence of atrial arrhythmias indicating atrial involvement in the disease. We aimed to assess the long-term evolution of P-wave indices as electrocardiographic (ECG) markers of atrial substrate during ARVC progression. Methods and results We included 100 p...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Foundation. Main funding source(s): The Danish Heart Foundation (grant no.: 09-04-R72-A2408-22545, 10-04-R78-A2929-22588, 11-04-R84-A3230-22650, and 18-R125-A8534-22083), and the Heart Centre Research Committee at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen. Background The relationship between natriuretic peptides a...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Foundation. Main funding source(s): he Innovation Fund Denmark (grant no.: 12-135225), The Research Foundation for the Capital Region of Denmark, The Danish Heart Foundation (grant no.: 11-04-R83-A3363-22625 and 18-R125-A8534-22083), Aalborg University Talent Management Programme, Arvid Nilssons Fon...

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) in heart failure (HF) patients has been associated with a worse outcome. Similarly, excessive supraventricular ectopic activity (ESVEA) has been linked to development of AF, stroke, and death. This study aimed to investigate AF and ESVEA's association with outcomes and effect of prophylactic implantable cardiover...

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a multidisciplinary intervention including patient assessment and medical actions to promote stabilization, management of cardiovascular risk factors, vocational support, psychosocial management, physical activity counselling, and prescription of exercise training. Millions of people with cardiac implantable electroni...

Background Artificial intelligence (AI), such as machine learning (ML), shows great promise for improving clinical decision-making in cardiac diseases by outperforming statistical-based models. However, few AI-based tools have been implemented in cardiology clinics because of the sociotechnical challenges during transitioning from algorithm develop...

BACKGROUND Artificial intelligence (AI), such as machine learning (ML), shows great promise for improving clinical decision-making in cardiac diseases by outperforming statistical-based models. However, few AI-based tools have been implemented in cardiology clinics because of the sociotechnical challenges during transitioning from algorithm develop...

Aims Improved risk stratification to identify non-ischaemic heart failure patients who will benefit from primary prophylactic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is needed. We examined the potential of ventricular arrhythmia to identify patients who could benefit from an ICD. Methods and results A total of 850 non-ischaemic systolic heart...

Aims Left atrial enlargement predicts incident atrial fibrillation (AF). However, the prognostic value of peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS) for predicting incident AF in participants from the general population is currently unknown. Our aim was to investigate if PALS can be used to predict AF and ischaemic stroke in the general population. Me...

Left atrial enlargement is associated with mortality due to cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. The pathology behind and the association with cardiovascular outcomes are, however, poorly characterised. Compromised atrial function seems to predispose for stroke. We obtained data from the UK Biobank cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR)...

Background/Introduction Cardiac conduction disorders cover disorders such as atrioventricular (AV) block and bundle branch block. Genome-wide association studies have identified more than 100 genetic loci for atrial fibrillation, including HCN4 loci associated with duration of the PR interval, a proxy for AV dysfunction. Recent candidate studies su...

Background Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, and it is associated with serious complications; including an increased risk of stroke, heart failure, and death. It affects around 5% of the population above 65 years of age, and it is estimated that 2% of healthcare expenses are related to AF. The causes of AF are complex,...

Background Anxiety among cardiac patients is highly prevalent and is associated to poor outcomes. Certain types of psychotropic medication are suspected of causing adverse events in cardiac patients. However, an association between symptoms of anxiety and use of psychotropic medication among cardiac patients has not yet been established. Purpose T...

Background Left atrial late gadolinium enhancement (LA LGE) measured with cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is emerging as a marker of atrial fibrosis and has been associated with worse outcomes in AF ablation procedures. However, the prognostic value of LA LGE for incident AF remains unknown. Methods CMR including measurement of left ventr...

Background Patients with left ventricular systolic heart failure have a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality and sudden cardiac death. A cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) sub-study of the Danish Study to Assess the Efficacy of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs) in Patients with Nonischemic Systolic Heart Failure on Mortali...

Background Supraventricular tachycardias (SVTs) originate from the atria or the area close to the AV node. AV nodal reentry tachycardia (AVNRT) is one of the tachyarrhytmias comprising the group of SVTs. The typical patient is female, young at disease onset, with a structurally normal heart. At present we do not know the etiology of AVNRT. We there...

Background Atrial natriuretic peptides (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptides (BNP) are acutely released from the atrial myocytes upon increased mechanical distension of the atria. The relationship between imaging measures of left atrial (LA) structure and function and natriuretic peptides following catheter ablation (CA) have not been clearly deline...

Background Depolarization and repolarization abnormalities are common in arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), and are included in the diagnostic 2010 Task Force criteria (TFC2010). However, first ARVC symptoms commonly occur before ECG abnormalities reach the diagnostic thresholds and the time course of ECG abnormalities during i...

Background Even though catheter ablation (CA) is an effective treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), AF-related hospitalizations and cardioversions are common following this procedure. Purpose To investigate whether echocardiographic measures of left atrial (LA) function could predict AF-related hospitalizations and cardioversions. Methods This...

Increased sympathetic activity is suggested to be part of the pathogenesis in several diseases. Methods to evaluate sympathetic activity and renal nervous denervation procedural success are lacking. Scintigraphy using the norepinephrine analog Iodine-123 Metaiodobenzylguanidine (123 I-MIBG) might provide information on renal sympathetic nervous act...

Aims : Little is known about cardiac structure and function among atrial fibrillation (AF) subtypes; paroxysmal AF vs. persistent AF (PxAF), and across AF burden. We sought to assess differences in left atrial (LA) measures by AF subtype and burden. Methods and results : This was a cross-sectional echocardiographic substudy of a randomized trial...

Objective To assess outcomes at 12 and 24 months following participation in a multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation program plus usual care compared with usual care alone for patients treated for atrial fibrillation with catheter ablation. Design Long-term follow-up on the randomized CopenHeartRFA trial. Stetting Patients were enrolled and out...