THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Paving the way for the testing of treatment modifications suited to India and testing new devices in the field of heart failure (HF), a Centre for Advanced Research and Excellence (CARE) in HF will start functioning at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST).
A proposal for the same submitted by the SCTIMST received the approval of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) which will grant an assistance of `5 crore over the next five years for establishing the centre.
ICMR had earlier invited applications for setting up 10 CARE in the areas of cancer, mental health, cardiology, nephrology and chronic kidney disease, air pollution/pulmonary medicine, diabetes/metabolic syndrome, gastroenterology and obesity, geriatrics and disability, forensic medicine and clinical pharmacology.
“The SCTIMST proposal had five components, including a national database of HF, a biobank of HF patients, a study on the micro-economic and psychosocial impact of HF, mobile health (mHealth) and development of point-of-care (POC) device systems,” said Dr Harikrishnan S, professor of cardiology at SCTIMST, who made the proposal presentation with Dr Sanjay G and Dr P Jeemon.
According to him, through establishing a biobank, the genomic, metabolomic and proteomic markers of health outcomes in HF patients can be assessed. Through mHealth interventions by trained nurses and family caregivers, improvement in the practice of evidence-based care for the management of HF in India is being envisioned. The POC device systems to aid the management of patients with HF will be developed by the biomedical technology wing of SCTIMST.
SCTIMST director Dr Asha Kishore said the ICMR’s nod for establishing CARE in HF is a recognition for the interventions being made by Sree Chitra in the field of heart diseases.