Summary
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major killer in Europe, causing 3.9 million deaths (around 45% of all deaths) annually. What’s more, a third of deaths from CVD occur in the under 75s. On the economic front, CVD costs the EU around EUR 210 billion a year, with healthcare costs accounting for just over half of this figure. Three diseases – atrial fibrillation (AF), heart failure (HF) and acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are major drivers of CVD. All three are extremely complex and characterised by large differences between patients with the same diagnosis. As a result, it is hard to predict which patients will respond best to which treatments.
The BigData@Heart project is part of IMI’s Big Data for Better Outcome (BD4BO) Programme. It brings together some of Europe’s leading experts in CVD treatment and management, as well as epidemiologists, big data scientists, doctors, industry representatives, patient representatives, and ethics and legal experts. Between them, the partners have access to many cohorts and databases in this field. With this diverse team and resources, the project will be able to develop new definitions of diseases and outcomes; informatics platforms that link, visualise and harmonise different data sources; data science techniques; and guidelines on the cross-border use of big data resources. In the long term, the project expects to have an impact on our understanding of heart disease, the discovery of new targets for treatments, and progress towards personalised treatments for CVD.
Achievements & News
September 2023
BigData@Heart findings underscore importance of accounting for sex-based differences in medical research
November 2022
The project hopes the CODE-EHR framework will boost confidence in the results of studies using real world data, and so...
The beginning of the coronavirus pandemic led people to stay away from emergency departments (EDs) in the UK, recent data analysis suggests, including those with urgent heart problems. And this in turn may have led to a spike in mortality, according to a new study supported by IMI project BigData@Heart. ###
The study, which was published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, analysed data gathered between March and April 2020 from the UK’s government statistics body, as well as a public registry that tracks emergency department visits, and ran a script to estimate the number of excess deaths. They estimate that during the initial phase of the pandemic, there was a drop of about 2 750 visits per week (a 35% decrease) for suspected cardiac disease.
Lead author Dr Michail Katsoulis said: "Our analysis suggested that one cardiac death might have been prevented or delayed for every additional 12 ED visits for suspected cardiac conditions." They arrived at the conclusion that there may have been as many as 232 more deaths per week early in the pandemic, compared to the pre-pandemic period.
As for the reasons people stayed away, no doubt fear of infection played a role. On top of that, public health messaging focused on encouraging people to put as little pressure on the UK’s national health service as possible.
Find out more
- Read the article in full
Participants
Show participants on mapEFPIA companies
- Bayer Aktiengesellschaft, Leverkusen, Germany
- Institut De Recherches Internationales Servier Iris, Suresnes, France
- Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland
- Somalogic Inc, Boulder, United States
- Vifor (International) AG, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Universities, research organisations, public bodies, non-profit groups
- Charite - Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- European Heart Network Aisbl, Bruxelles, Netherlands
- Fundacion Para La Investigacion Del Hospital Clinico De La Comunitat Valenciana, Fundacion Incliva, Valencia, Spain
- Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Region Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
- Societe Europeenne De Cardiologie, Biot, France
- The University Of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Universitaetsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
- Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
- University College London, London, United Kingdom
- University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-sized companies (<€500 m turnover)
- International Consortium For Healthoutcomes Measurement Inc., Cambridge, United States
- Stichting Mlc Foundation, Den Haag, Netherlands
- The Hyve BV, Utrecht, Netherlands
Third parties
- International Consortium For Healthoutcomes Measurement LTD, London, United Kingdom
- Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
| Participants | |
|---|---|
| Name | EU funding in € |
| Charite - Universitaetsmedizin Berlin | 1 049 375 |
| European Heart Network Aisbl | 150 800 |
| Fundacion Para La Investigacion Del Hospital Clinico De La Comunitat Valenciana, Fundacion Incliva | 386 250 |
| Karolinska Institutet | 249 999 |
| Region Uppsala | 200 000 |
| Societe Europeenne De Cardiologie | 617 035 |
| Stichting Mlc Foundation | 116 812 |
| The Hyve BV | 376 250 |
| The University Of Birmingham | 468 927 |
| Universitaetsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf | 386 250 |
| Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht | 3 296 187 |
| University College London | 1 377 428 |
| University of Cambridge | 670 281 |
| Third parties | |
| Name | Funding in € |
| International Consortium For Healthoutcomes Measurement LTD | 319 375 |
| Region Stockholm | 1 |
| Total Cost | 9 664 970 |
Gunnar Brobert
Bayer