Donation will advance ground-breaking work taking place to help those at risk of sudden cardiac death

Heart experts at the University of Leicester have been awarded £400,000 to advance their work on a technique to assess a patient’s risk of sudden cardiac death.

LifeMap is a product which harnesses patented electrical restitution techniques to make a simple, precise assessment of sudden cardiac death risk, a condition that kills three million people annually.

Using a wire inserted into the groin and up into the heart, this measurement has already been embedded into ECG recordings, which display heart rhythm and electrical activity. Work is now taking place to make it into a much more user-friendly tool.

Now, thanks to the donation from The Kusuma Trust, which gives grants to organisations making a difference within the cardiac field, this ground-breaking work will continue. The money will help pay for a clinical PhD position at the University over the next four years. 

Professor André Ng, Professor of Cardiac Electrophysiology and Consultant Cardiologist and Head of Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Leicester, said: “We’re extremely grateful to the trust for this funding award. It’s a reflection of the pioneering work that is taking place here and our relentless drive to advance cardiovascular science for the benefit of patients. 

“The funding will allow us to expand, bringing in more talent to our cardiovascular research team to turbocharge our work on LifeMap.  

“Sudden death due to lethal heart disturbance remains a major clinical problem which LifeMap is trying to address. Current guideline-based assessment of sudden death risk is imprecise with many patients who have heart attacks being prescribed expensive implanted defibrillators if their heart function is poor. 

“However, the majority of patients do not use their device over the 4-5 year battery lifespan. On the other hand, sudden death can occur in patients with heart attacks but less poor heart function – but these patients are not being considered for the defibrillators that could potentially save lives. 

“We have translated preclinical scientific knowledge into successfully developing new ECG markers that have been shown to be effective in assessing sudden death risk. The new funding will allow us to extend our research into this area of a very much unmet clinical need.” 

Soma Pujari, Executive Trustee from the Kusuma Trust, said: “We’re excited to be partnering with the University of Leicester to support translational cardiac research.

“Leicester’s LifeMap project is a novel, highly promising technique for assessing risk of sudden cardiac death. Our grant will allow the University to further the project, applying recent developments in the University’s research to post-MI (Myocardial Infarction) patients with less impaired cardiac function.”