Dr Sam Heuts (Dept. of CTC) has received a Dekker grant awarded by the Dutch Heart Foundation.

The Clinical Scientist Grant of €264k will facilitate the initiation of a multidisciplinary research group, involving several CARIM divisions, focusing on the identification of clinically relevant myocardial injury after cardiac surgery in general, and coronary artery bypass surgery in particular.
 
During cardiac surgery, the heart is temporarily ceased and its function is taken over by the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. As such, some cardiac injury is inherently part of the procedure. However, until now, the thresholds of cardiac injury (as quantified by biomarkers such as cardiac troponins) that negatively influence prognosis and actually warrant early recognition and treatment, remain unknown. Therefore, Sam and his team will apply several different study designs incorporating state-of-the-art imaging techniques and extensive biomarker follow up to determine the diagnostic and prognostic value of these modalities for clinically important injury, in a multicenter setting.