In addition to clinical care, intensive research for ever-improving cardiovascular medicine is one of the most important tasks of the DHZB. This is also laid down in the statutes of our clinic as a foundation under civil law.

Currently, the team of the outpatient study clinic is responsible for 28 ongoing studies with more than 720 patients, including large international multicenter studies. About five new studies are added each year.

Always safe - and often beneficial 

• Conducting a clinical trial always means testing a new therapeutic option. For such a study to be approved at all, this new procedure or drug must have already proven its promising effect in many tests. Thus, participation is often particularly promising for patients who do not respond to already approved therapies or suffer from side effects. 
• It goes without saying that all studies conducted at the DHZB - or with our participation - are subject to the strictest ethical, scientific and legal standards and meet all the necessary legal requirements and norms. 
• Study patients have a fixed contact person and are informed particularly comprehensively, intensively and continuously about the treatment and the alternatives and are closely supervised. 
• Side effects and health changes can be quickly recognized and specifically treated.
• In addition to regular examinations and tests, the study patients often receive special examinations (e.g. echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging) and, if necessary, treatments according to the latest state of knowledge.
• All examinations and treatments within the framework of a clinical study are, of course, free of charge. This means that study patients often receive services that are not normally covered by health insurance. 
• In some cases, reimbursement of expenses (e.g. travel costs) is also provided.

Current studies are testing, among other things:

• Use of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists in heart failure patients with preserved pump function,
• Iron substitution in heart failure patients with preserved or reduced pump function,
• Optimization of blood thinning in patients with combined risk of thromboembolism,
• Effectiveness of cardiac implants (valve replacement, ventricular reduction, left atrial appendage closure),
• The prognostic value of certain parameters in the early detection of heart disease,
• Application of new imaging techniques,
• Long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Clinical and translational research is an essential basis of the work of the entire Department of Cardiology. An integral part of all working groups are collaborations with research groups in Germany and abroad as well as the regular supervision of doctoral theses at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Several members of the department are available for this purpose, also proven by high-ranking publications as well as several years of experience abroad. The different research groups are closely interlinked, whereby a constructive and collegial cooperation ensures the implementation of clinical as well as translational projects. You can read more about our research projects here.