The Cardiac, Vascular and Cognitive Dysfunction (CVCD) Alliance will be a prospective, multi-ethnic cohort study in healthy Canadian individuals between 35 and 69, looking at contextual risk factors and novel predictors of hard events over a period of four years. The unique features of this initiative are: * MRI as the sole imaging technique (including the use of a mobile MRI machine) * Contextual factor analysis (including community environmental profile assessments) * Record linkage follow-up of individuals to health services (administrative) databases for major morbidity and mortality events and health services utilization
Cardiac, vascular, and cognitive dysfunction have a strong impact on the quality of life, longevity and health care costs, in Canada and globally. Cardiovascular risk factors account for up to half of the attributable risk for dementia, mediated in large part by difficult to detect microvascular disease of the brain. In this study the investigators will try to understand the role of the societal structure, nutrition, access to health services, and other socio-environmental and contextual factors on cardiovascular risk factors, subclinical disease and clinical cardiovascular events at the individual and population levels. We will try to identify markers for early subclinical dysfunction in the brain, vessels, heart and abdomen using magnetic resonance imaging and investigate the associations with contextual and individual determinants of these markers, as well as to assess the predictive value of novel markers of subclinical dysfunction on the development of clinical cardiovascular events.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
7,900
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Seaman Family MR Research Center
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
St Paul's Hospital
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Myocardial Infarction (MI)
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
Stroke
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive Heart Failure requiring hospitalization
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
New onset established risk factors
* Incident diagnosis of diabetes by physician * Incident diagnosis of arterial hypertension by physician * Incident diagnosis of significant cognitive dysfunction (i.e. dementia) by physician.
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)
Risk markers acquired through imaging and blood samples
* Acquired parameters that are linked to the present health status * Candidate parameters for predicting cardiovascular events which affect cardiac and cognitive dysfunction. For further details, please see list of outcomes in the questionnaires and the MRI protocol described in section 4 above
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QEII Health Sciences Center
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
St. Joseph's Healthcare
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Robarts Research Institute
London, Ontario, Canada
Ottawa Heart Institute
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
St Michael's Hospital
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Montreal Heart Insitute
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
...and 2 more locations
Time frame: After completion of MRI and during follow-up period (2 to 3 years)