Anna-Sophie Thein
DARE: Predicting which heart patients will need a pacemaker – the first step towards prevention
Anna-Sophie Thein is studying medicine at the University of Copenhagen and will spend the next ten months researching arrhythmia at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), one of the top universities in the USA.
In recent decades, pacemakers have played a prominent role in treating arrhythmia. Globally, it is estimated that 1.25 million pacemakers are fitted each year. Pacemakers are particularly crucial for treating bradyarrhythmia, which occurs when the electrical impulses in the heart are blocked or fail to transmit properly, leading to an abnormally slow or irregular heartbeat.
Fitting a pacemaker always entails a risk of significant short and long-term complications. While research into other heart conditions has focused strongly on prevention and intervention, similar effort has not yet been made in preventing arrhythmia before a pacemaker needs to be fitted.
‘The project is a register-based study designed to identify the risk factors involved in fitting pacemakers,’ explains Anna-Sophie Thein.
‘We are using the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) databases, which contain data on all hospital admissions, visits to A&E and outpatient procedures in California 2005–2020, a total of over 25 million people and 100 million contacts with the healthcare system. Using statistical analyses to identify patterns will allow us to study whether factors such as sex, specific conditions or the season of the year can predict if a patient is at particularly high risk if they have a pacemaker fitted,’ she adds.
During her time at UCSF, Thein will work with one of the world’s leading experts in arrhythmia, Dr Gregory Marcus, who has extensive experience with the OSHPD databases and is known for his innovative approach to research, which includes converting big data into new knowledge about disease progression and risk factors. Her Danish mentor will be Professor Tor Biering-Sørensen, head of the Cardiovascular Non-Invasive Imaging Research Laboratory (CIRL) at Herlev-Gentofte Hospital and head of the Center for Translational Cardiology and Pragmatic Randomized Trials at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.
Analyses based on data from the huge OSHPD databases in California provide a unique opportunity to identify the risk factors involved in fitting pacemakers. This study will be the biggest of its kind to date. The hope is that the results will pave the way for earlier and more effective treatment of patients with bradyarrhythmia and, not least, be the first step to preventing the need for a pacemaker.
‘I’ve been really interested in research since my second year. As a DARE Fellow, I will now have a unique opportunity to combine research at the highest level with cultural exchange and access to a network of world-leading experts in my field. I look forward to seeing what new experiences, insights and opportunities the next ten months bring,’ she says.
Anna-Sophie Thein, 24, has a year left at the University of Copenhagen when she returns from California. She is one of five Danish medical students travelling to the USA as part of the Lundbeck Foundation's Danish American Research Exchange (DARE) programme. Thein will spend the year on her studies and on research at University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) – one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
