Research lines

• 1. Clinical, electrical and genetic characteristics of Brugada syndrome

  Since the description of the Brugada syndrome by Pedro and Josep Brugada (team leader), or group been working in the different aspects of this disease: from the clinical and genetic diagnosis, to the identifications of patients at risk of sudden cardiac death to the prevention and management of ventricular arrhythmias by medical treatment and/or ablation.

  An exciting current line of research is the project 'ANVERSO: Continuous and Automatic analysis of Electrocardiographic Variables associated to the Risk of Sudden Death in patients with Brugada Syndrome' (PI16/01203) which focuses on the analysis of high-resolution continuous electrocardiographic monitoring to automatically detect sudden death risk markers. This project is co-financed by the European Union and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III - European Fund for Regional Development (FEDER – “Una manera de hacer Europa”).

• 2. Clinical, electrical and genetic characteristics of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy

  Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy is a hereditary disease of the heart muscle that causes life threatening arrhythmias and progressive heart failure. We are using genetic and advanced electrocardiographic monitoring and imaging to improve prevention, early diagnosis and management.

• 3. Sudden cardiac death without an apparent cause: post-mortem genetic study

  Our group is part of a collaborative effort between the Institut de Medicina Legal de Catalunya, Hospital Josep Trueta (Girona) and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona) and ours. Since 2012, any sudden unexpected death without a clear cause on the autopsy is evaluated by extensive genetic testing in an attempt to identify a possible hereditary cause. More than 500 samples and 1000 family members have been evaluated, allowing a more specific selection of diagnostic and therapeutic tools to protect genetically affected individuals.

• 4. International collaboration for genome-wide association studies in Brugada and long QT syndrome

  This international collaboration of >70 centres has allowed the identification of common genetic variants that have a strong impact of the predisposition of these rare electrical diseases.