Scientific publications
Myocardial fibrosis: biomedical research from bench to bedside
Mariann Gyöngyösi 1 , Johannes Winkler 1 , Isbaal Ramos 2 , Quoc-Tuan Do 3 , Hüseyin Firat 4 , Kenneth McDonald 5 , Arantxa González 6 , Thomas Thum 7 8 , Javier Díez 6 9 , Frédéric Jaisser 10 , Anne Pizard 11 , Faiez Zannad 11
Abstract
Myocardial fibrosis refers to a variety of quantitative and qualitative changes in the interstitial myocardial collagen network that occur in response to cardiac ischaemic insults, systemic diseases, drugs, or any other harmful stimulus affecting the circulatory system or the heart itself.
Myocardial fibrosis alters the architecture of the myocardium, facilitating the development of cardiac dysfunction, also inducing arrhythmias, influencing the clinical course and outcome of heart failure patients. Focusing on myocardial fibrosis may potentially improve patient care through the targeted diagnosis and treatment of emerging fibrotic pathways.
The European Commission funded the FIBROTARGETS consortium as a multinational academic and industrial consortium with the primary aim of performing a systematic and collaborative search of targets of myocardial fibrosis, and then translating these mechanisms into individualized diagnostic tools and specific therapeutic pharmacological options for heart failure.
This review focuses on those methodological and technological aspects considered and developed by the consortium to facilitate the transfer of the new mechanistic knowledge on myocardial fibrosis into potential biomedical applications.
CITA DEL ARTÍCULO Eur J Heart Fail. 2017 Feb;19(2):177-191. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.696
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