The researchers would like to know more about cardiovascular abnormalities in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID) and with the aim to provide new biomarkers (clinical, blood, imaging) for early diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of CVD in patients with IMID. This is important as there are still many things that are not known about this and finding out more could improve how patients are treated in future.
Participants with IMID diagnoses will be recruited from rheumatology/cardiology departments as in-patients or outpatients.
Once consented, researchers will collect past, present and future clinical information about them, including routine cardiovascular imaging and blood tests. Participants will also be asked to complete questionnaires at predetermined intervals. The participants could also be approached to take part in the following sub-studies; Biological sub-study, in which blood and urine would be collected; And the Imaging-sub study, in which one or more of Echocardiography, Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging (CMR) and Laser Doppler Imaging (LDI) will be performed. Participants with CVD without IMID and healthy volunteers will also be recruited as comparison groups.
The research is to be funded by the NIHR Manchester BRC ('Integrated Cardiovascular' and 'Rheumatic \& Musculoskeletal Diseases' themes). Other funding eg Manchester Academic Health Sciences and a recently awarded Medical Research Council Partnership grant will also support this programme. The study will recruit in specialist NHS centres; Recruitment will start in Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.