Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality in the western world. They are an essential part of the health plans of any community, as a «priority areas» healthcare forming regular part of public research projects both at regional, national and European level. Nowadays, Due to its complexity, research is developed through Multidisciplinary groups within Programs that include professionals covering from basic research to applied. Another important feature is the development of collaborations with different groups through national and international networks that allow addressing more ambitious projects and compare the results.
In the research unit area Don Benito Villanueva de la Serena FUNDESALUD is being developed by the Multidisciplinary Group Extremadura (GRIMEX) an Research Program in Cardiovascular Diseases.
This program consists of two arms: one aimed at primary prevention and secondary prevention another.
Within the Primary Prevention we have conducted a study (HERMEX) on the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in the population of conducting a population study on 2833 individuals randomly chosen area. This research was conducted between 2007 and 2009 had to run with the support of Instituto Carlos III (FIS PI 071218) and Emerging Groups (EMER07 / 46), plus a Help caregivers intensification (INT07 / 289). The first results of this research, which have already been published in the Journal Atención Primaria, show us as a province with a high prevalence of risk factors, highlighting obesity, diabetes and smoking.
This study allowed to add our data with the data from ten similar studies in many Spanish communities and establish a national collaborative study (DARIOS) that, in a population of 28887 individuals, shows the reality of cardiovascular risk factors in our country at the first decade of the century. Within the same Badajoz it´s a region with high prevalence of diabetes and obesity among other cardiovascular risk factors. Their results are published by the Spanish Journal of Cardiology.
But beyond the study of the risk factors, the HERMEX study has collected data from differents groups of rural and urban populations in the Mediterranean environment, socioeconomic and psychological (Test Goldberg) profiles, his prevalence of subclinical heart disease, kidney and ischemia of lower extremities (ankle arm index of the entire sample).
It has also been collected and aliquoted samples of blood of the entire population that is stored frozen at Banco de Sangre de Extremadura and on which several studies are planned with different regional and national groups. Currently has started work on Metabolic Syndrome study of its prevalence and tracked over time.
One aspect of utmost importance in our research group is the study of blood biomarkers to improve the prediction of events in healthy and sick population. In this sense we have worked in the SIESTA study in acute coronary syndromes without ST-segment elevation, results have been published in Atherosclerosis.
We are currently coordinated with Dr. Jaume Marrugat the study DARIOS INFLAMMATORY that over 3250 individuals from different Spanish communities studied metabolic and inflammatory biomarkers in four different population groups: people with diabetes, obese with metabolic syndrome and finally to people who do not present none of these characteristics.
In secondary prevention, we have compiled a unique database of all patients during the decade 2000/09 have been discharge from the hospital or exitus with discharge diagnosis according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD9) of myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation or stroke, in the Don Benito-Villanueva Hospital.
In the database program epidemiological, clinical, evolution, diagnostic, therapeutic indications, employment status, survival are collected. All this information has been printed and encoded by personnel trained for this purpose who works in the Research Unit and Technical Research.
The population constituting this group of patients is: Myocardial Infarction (Studio Castuo: 2,241 patients); heart failure (INCA study: 2,224 patients), acute stroke (Studio STROKE: 2,795 patients) and atrial fibrillation (Studio lazy: 526 patients). The total base of 7,786 patients secondary prevention sum which added to the 2,833 study patients Primary Prevention totals 10,619 individuals.
We started with interview all patients who have had a heart attack this study has achieved the FIS (PI10 / 02153) from the last call of the Carlos III Institute.
The development of this research has allowed us to integrate national and international collaborative studies.
At the European level We are part of the Project Steering Committee WAKE UP (Why Kill Atherosclerosis less people in southern Europe): Dr. Jaume Marrugat, Dr. Juan Carlos Kaski; Dr. Roberto Elosua and Dr. Daniel Fernandez-Berges. This initiative will try to advance the understanding of the reasons that determine a higher mortality from stroke and sudden death in the northern regions of Europe in relation to the southern regions. The hypothesis behind the research is that the increased mortality from myocardial infarction in northern Europe due to lower stability of atherosclerotic plaque in this region compared to the Mediterranean region; we will draw the randomized population study of different countries to which we will study high-resolution image.
The latter project has been presented in the notice of VII Framework Plan and the same, if successful, will enable the final integration of GRIMEX Group on a solid international consortium to ensure its sustainability and scientific growth over time.