Research team investigates why cardiac surgery can lead to fatal organ damage
The Cardiac Surgery Research team is drawing on support from patients and members of the public to investigate why cardiac surgery can often result in serious or fatal damage to other organs in the body. Through a series of trials they hope to find out why almost half of patients having heart surgery develop failure of one or more other organs, such as the lungs or kidneys.
This vital new research relies on patients volunteering to take part in clinical trials, and members of the public, many of whom are heart attack survivors themselves, have volunteered their services to help cardiac surgery research by joining the ground-breaking Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) group.
The PPI team have also arranged for the University's Professor Gavin Murphy, British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiac Surgery in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences to give a lecture entitled ‘How safe is blood transfusion?’ at Loughborough University on 16 June.
In keeping with Glenfield Hospital’s position as a leading provider of children’s cardiac services, one of the studies - the p-MiVAKI trial (funded by the local charity Heart Link) – continues to make fresh discoveries into why heart operations on children can often lead to kidney damage.
Commenting on the part played by his PPI group, Professor Murphy said: “By making public and patient participation part of our research strategy we will ensure that our research best reflects the needs and concerns of the community which it aims to help.
“We would be unable to deliver our current research strategy without the commitment and time kindly given by the previous patients and members of the public who make up our PPI, which is directly making a difference to both patient experience and research success to an unprecedented extent.”