Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital

Healthcare provider: Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital is a unique tertiary hospital that provides a full range of treatment and intervention for cardiac patient of all ages. The cardiology team offers cardiology services ranging from routine cardiac imaging to heart transplants, which include:

  1. Consultive cardiology: Consultant cardiologists create individualized treatment plans through individualized consultations with the patient. Plans range from behaviour modification to decrease the risk of serious heart complications to treatments that improve quality of life and life expectancy for patients with mild to advanced cardiac diseases.
  2. Cardiac imaging: The echocardiogram laboratory and the team of imaging experts work together to provide enhanced cardiac imaging that support better diagnosis and treatment. Transoesophageal echocardiography, three-dimensional echocardiography, stress test echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and conventional computer tomography are routinely performed to provide cardiologists the best tool they need to help the patients.
  3. Treatment of ischemic heart diseases: Treatment methods for ischemic heart diseases (angina pectoris, cardiac infarction, etc.) include drug therapy, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
  4. Valvular heart diseases: Interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons collaborate to cure heart valve diseases performing trans-catheter aortic valve replacements and conventional artificial valve replacement or repair.
  5. Congenital Heart disease: Children cardiologists and paediatric cardiac surgeons join their effort to diagnose and treat congenital heart defects. Thanks to better treatment congenital heart defect patients live older but are susceptible to develop specific complications managed by a dedicated team of adult congenital heart disease cardiologists.
  6. Advances cardiac care: Experts at the heart transplant centre provide patients with a full range of heart failure treatment- from transplants to mechanical assist devices.
  7. Cardiac rehabilitation: This treatment is intended for patients who have just undergone heart surgery, experienced angina, or after acute cardiac infarction, where it is used to restore cardiac and bodily functions and to improve post-operative progress and the development of symptoms.

Centre for rare and complex heart diseases: The Rhythmology unit and the Centre for Inherited Arrhythmia Disorder is located at the Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital. The Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital provides a full range of cardiac services for patients of all ages. One of the contributions to take care of these patients consists of developing patient-based strategies during cardiology consultations focused on arrhythmic disorders risk. Patients may be referred for evaluation of a wide variety of symptoms such as palpitation, chest pain, dizziness, fatigue, syncope. The electrophysiology laboratory provides a full evaluation and treatment program in order to diagnose and treat arrhythmia disorders. Arrhythmias occur when there is a change in the normal rate or rhythm of the heartbeat. They are generally caused by abnormalities in the heart’s electrical system and are classified by their place of origin and by their rate.

The Rhythmology unit and the Centre for Inherited Arrhythmia Disorder is specialized in the following services:

  1. Ablation: The application of radiofrequency heat energy, ultra sounds or freezing to destroy the abnormal tissues in the heart that are causing arrhythmia. The Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital has developed surgical and medical approaches in this field.
  2. Pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) — Sometimes implantable devices are used to correct an abnormally slow or fast heart rhythm. They sense the heartbeat and turn on when regulation is necessary. These devices can also coordinate the contraction of the heart’s pumping chambers to increase the efficiency of the heart and improve congestive heart failure symptoms (more than 800 hundred devices are implanted each year). The Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital is the only centre in France where surgical left stellectomy is performed.
  3. Evaluation of syncope (fainting) and palpitations: In addition the Centre for Inherited Arrhythmia Disorder provides genetic counselling to patients with definite inherited cardiac arrhythmias and propose clinical and genetic screening to their family members. Genetic cardiac disorders that can lead to sudden cardiac death. Thanks to familial screening, asymptomatic carriers can be identified and specific measures (as cardioverter defibrillator implantation) can be taken if needed. Sophisticated Holter analysis (wavelets, T wave alternans) are used to risk stratify patients with heart diseases. Tilt testing, pharmacological drug testing are also used as well as implantable loop recorders.
  4. Thorough investigation of cardiac muscle disease: Echocardiography lab with 3D analysis, sequential MRI, Spiral, Electron beam CT, multi-detector CT, Positron emission tomography, SPECT imaging.

Prof. Dr. Philippe Chevalier is a cardiologist and the representative member of Louis Pradel Cardiovascular Hospital in ERN GUARD-HEART.