Chronic Remote Ischemic Conditioning for Heart Attack (CRIC-RCT Trial)

During a heart attack, an artery carrying blood and oxygen to the heart becomes blocked, which causes damage to the heart muscle. When possible, a clot-busting drug is given or a procedure called angioplasty is performed soon after a heart attack starts, to open up the blocked artery and restore blood flow to the heart. While this can be an effective treatment to reduce permanent damage to the heart, patients can still experience heart failure afterwards. Consequently many patients require medications to support their heart after a heart attack. Recent research has shown a new technique called Remote Ischemic conditioning or RIC, is effective at protecting the heart muscle in a heart attack. RIC is produced simply by repeated inflation and deflation of a blood pressure cuff on an arm or leg to temporarily cut off and then restore blood flow to that limb. The investigators believe this triggers the release of molecular factors that protect heart muscle. In a recent study in humans, it reduced the amount of permanent damage to the heart muscle when applied before the angioplasty procedure. The investigators recent animal studies have shown that RIC may also help the heart muscle recover after a heart attack if applied everyday during the month after a heart attack, by preventing heart failure. This is important for two reasons: first, currently the investigators can only treat heart failure with medications, and second, some people have heart attacks but are not suitable to have angioplasty and so are at greater risk of heart failure. Daily RIC may provide an easy and effective new treatment to prevent heart failure after a heart attack. This application proposes a preliminary study in humans to see if daily RIC can help heart muscle recovery after a heart attack.