Click here to stream the public defence
Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Emeritus Heikki Veli Huikuri, Oulu University Hospital,
- Second opponent: Senior consultant Ole Christian Mjølstad, St. Olav's University Hospital,
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Associate professor Kristi Aas, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Erik Harald Øie, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Associate Professor Peder Langeland Myhre, University of Oslo
Summary
Ventricular arrhythmias are life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias that can lead to circulatory collapse and sudden cardiac death. Implantation of a cardiac defibrillator is recommended to prevent sudden cardiac death in patients who are at high risk of such severe arrhythmic events. However, there are currently no accurate tools that enable prediction of patients at increased risk. Therefore, we aimed to assess the value of cardiovascular markers for the prediction of ventricular arrhythmias in a high-risk population.
First, we demonstrate that patients who had inhomogeneity in the electrical signal of the ventricular pumping phase of the cardiac cycle (i.e. fragmentation of the QRS complex on ECG) had over 3 times higher risk of ventricular arrhythmias compared to those who did not have QRS fragmentation. Second, we demonstrate that higher levels of the established cardiovascular biomarkers troponin and NT-proBNP were associated with an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias.
In contrast, there were no association between biomarkers of inflammation ventricular arrhythmia risk. These findings suggest that QRS-fragmentation, troponin and NT-proBNP may be useful markers for selecting patients who will benefit from treatment with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.