Grant: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

Heart disease is the leading cause of illness and death in Canada and heart failure is the final common pathway for most forms of heart diseases. Even with current treatments, the numbers of patients with heart failure are increasing. Right heart failure is an important marker of prognosis and disease severity in many patients with cardiac and lung diseases. It is estimated that approximately 30% of patients who have very common diseases like pulmonary hypertension and diastolic heart failure will develop right heart failure. Once right heart failure develops, a patient's prognosis and outlook is poor. At present there are no specific medications that can be used to treat and improve prognosis from right heart failure partially due to lack of understanding of why the disease develops in the first place. This study may help us to understand how and why some patients get right heart failure, how imaging tools can be used to help patient care, and importantly - how medications may be used to treat and prevent right heart failure. This will be the first study of its kind to address this knowledge gap with the use of novel imaging techniques applied both to small animal models and clinical patients. This work has the potential to prevent progressive cardiovascular disease and improve cardiovascular health outcomes through better diagnosis and/or treatment.