Clinical Research Studies

Clinical research studies contribute very importantly to the Arrhythmia Service’s ability to achieve its mission of promoting outstanding clinical service, education and research. These studies may be sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, other governmental agencies, industry, or Stanford arrhythmia physicians.
 
Very often new technologies or methods are only available to our patients via these clinical studies. In some cases, these clinical studies use approved devices or technologies but are investigating a new use or application of these techniques.

Many of these national programs were initiated by Stanford's arrhythmia physicians. The Stanford Arrhythmia Program has active programs in pacemakers, ICDs, resynchronization therapy, and catheter ablation. In addition, there are specific protocols related to heart failure.

New Arrhythmia Technologies

We have developed a collaboration with the Stanford Biodesign program, an innovative collaboration between medicine and engineering for the development of new technologies in medicine.
 
We are actively developing new approaches to arrhythmia diagnosis and treatment. This includes:

• New device development
  
  
• Resynchronization Therapy
  
  
• New technologies for catheter ablation
  
  
• Integration of imaging in catheter ablation
  
  
• Arrhythmias in cardiomyopathies (hypertrophic, ischemic, nonischemic)
  
  
• Atrial fibrillation: New treatments and diagnostic techniques
  
  
• New approaches to ICD and Pacemaker therapy
  
  
• Evaluation and management of syncope and autonomic dysfunction
  
  
• Evaluation of arrhythmias and sleep disorders
  
  
• Signal Processing techniques for diagnosis of arrhythmias