Update on the PICNIC project

The PICNIC study is a multicentre collaboration between the Coronary & Structural Heart Research Group at UHS (led by Professor Curzen & Professor Mahmoudi) & Oxford University, Imperial College, North Stafford Hospital and Royal Bournemouth, as well as cardiologists in South Korea. 

Thanks to the support of Heartbeat, the PICNIC study has now recruited the first 4 patients in Southampton.  The study is aiming to study the bystander coronary artery narrowings that heart attack patients who undergo emergency stenting for a newly blocked artery often also have, in order to see what makes some of those bystander narrowings cause further events (like heart attack or death) in the future.

The hospital team will be using CT scans of the other arteries and then some very complex imaging systems (from companies called HeartFlow and Caristo) in an artificial intelligence enabled model to assess association between these parameters and risk of events.

This study could help the consultants to plan better treatment strategies for such heart attack patients in the future.

Professor Nick Curzen commented "Thanks to Mark Ind and the Heartbeat team, we were able to finalise funding for the study in 2024"