Liryc's clinicians have identified the triggers of this arrhythmia in the pulmonary veins.

However, the cellular mechanism responsible in the pulmonary veins and the potential molecular targets are still unknown.

Curative treatment has been developed: cauterizing the pulmonary veins with a radiofrequency catheter to isolate these sources of arrhythmia. However, progress is still necessary to improve the screening, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of this arrhythmia:

• to develop better ablation devices for safer, faster and easier procedures,
• to develop specific drug therapies targeting the venous cells,
• to develop biomarkers for arrhythmia screening or risk quantification, as well as new strategies.

So, research projects are focused on these challenges. 

Young patients with genetic predisposition or simply an electrical disorder may develop this type of arrhythmia, but most ventricular arrhythmias occur in association with structural heart disease. Nearly 40% of sudden deaths occur as a complication ofheart disease (e.g. acute myocardial infarction) and are potentially reducible by the prevention of risk factors and coronary ischemia.

Liryc’s clinicians have located the sources of sudden death in the heart’s electrical system, called the Purkinje network. An innovative curative treatment by destroying the sources of arrhythmia by thermoablation helps prevent sudden death.

The major challenge, which the research teams are focusing on, is identifying high-risk individuals. Indeed, currently their survival rate does not exceed 4% because it is still not possible to identify them. There is significant progress to be made, given that these individuals could be fitted with an implantable defibrillator or treated with anti-arrhythmic drugs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who will die suddenly are not aware they're ill. Our challenge is to find a way to identify them in the general population.

With regard to heart failure, Liryc’s clinicians have helped to develop a therapy, consisting of resynchronising the heart with pacing leads.

The therapy has spread rapidly clinically, despite limited understanding of its mechanisms of action. Applied at an early stage of the condition, it can prevent its development and worsening and would have a significant clinical and socio-economic impact.

Further progress requires intensive basic research to understand the electrical disorders responsible for heart failure, and conversely, how cardiac resynchronization can improve myocardial function and prognosis. Good collaboration between scientists, clinicians and industry should enable technological advances necessary for resynchronisation to be even more effective, especially in a greater number of patients affected by heart failure.

Key figures:

• 1249 scientific articles published since 2012,
• 144 researchers, distributed across 4 clusters.