CardiacCOVID Study close to publishing 1-year outcomes

The CardiacCovid study, run at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, is looking at how patients recover from cardiac surgery carried out during the pandemic. This has included cardiothoracic surgery, with a number of participants having had emergency aortic dissection surgery. As of early March 2022 the 1-year follow-up of all the participants in the study has been completed. The study team are now looking at all of the data.

The results of the study from patients who had surgery in the first wave of the pandemic are being presented at the:

• Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery (SCTS) 2022 conference (Tuesday 10th May), and a scientific paper is in preparation.
• Cardiovascular Care Partnership (CCPUK) patient day at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) annual meeting (Tuesday 7th June), also including the great patient and public involvement (PPI) in this study.

The study team also recently published an editorial exploring the lack of women included in cardiovascular trials, which originated from discussions with the study’s Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) partners – https://academic.oup.com/eurjcn/article-abstract/20/7/629/6357313.

We would like to thank all participants for taking part in the study and Aortic Dissection Awareness UK & Ireland for their ongoing support of this work.

Gareth Owens, Chair of Aortic Dissection Awareness UK & Ireland said

“COVID-19 dominated the news in healthcare for much of 2020 and created many challenges in cardiac surgery, for healthcare professionals and their patients. As a full partner in the CardiacCovid research project, the national patient association AD Awareness UK & Ireland are delighted by the quality of the research, the number of patients enrolled in the study and what we are learning from their experience of recovering from cardiac surgery during the COVID pandemic. This will help us improve care for all cardiac surgery patients in future. This study is an example of patient-focused research at its best.”

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