Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2012

Mentor:           Gail Peterson, MD                           
Department:               Cardiology/Internal Medicine
Room number:           HA9.110
Mail Code:                 9047
Phone number:          214-645-7500
E-mail:                        gail.peterson@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title:                International Collaborative Study of Endocarditis

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):       IRB # 0901-501

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):      

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)
Patient-based research

Brief Description of Project:

The project involves collecting patient data for the International Collaborative Study of Infective Endocarditis (ICE).  ICE is a prospective cohort study to advance the understanding of endocarditis (IE) in areas that are difficult to study by traditional research methods.   Using a standardized case report form, we are collecting data (history, exam and ancillary studies as ordered by the patient’s primary care team) on inpatients with IE to include in an international registry.  There is no proposed experimental intervention, and management is determined solely by the patient’s physicians.  Thus, data captured in this study reflects a “real world” approach to the diagnosis and treatment of IE patients. 

The ICE prospective cohort study has been designed to address the following goals:

• To determine regional differences in IE
• To characterize aspects of IE that are infrequent in small, single center studies
• To determine predictors of outcomes in a large cohort of IE patients
• To analyze natural experiments regarding practice variation and associated patient outcomes

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

Jonathan Purcell was a first year medical student who spend the summer of 2006 working on the ICE database. With the data he collected he put together an abstract that was presented at the Cardiovascular Symposium 2006. He has also had an abstract accepted for the American College of Cardiology  Meetings in March 2007
Purcell JB, Patel M, Khera A, de Lemos J, Forbess LW, Cabell CH, Peterson GE.  Troponin elevation Troponin elevation is highly predictive of outcomes in patients with infective endocarditis.  vPoster presentation at the ACC meetings 2007. 

Angela Shiue was a first year medical student who spent the summer of 2007 working on the ICE database.  She also put together two abstracts for the medical student research publication, and an abstract for the American College of Cardiology Meetings in March of 2009. 

Shiue A, Purcell J, Stancoven A, Pinkston K, Patel M, Want A, Khera A, de Lemos JA, Peterson GE.  Elevation in brain natriuretic peptide predicts outcomes in infective endocarditis.  Presented at the American College of Cardiology Meetings 2009.

Angela continued to work on the project during her free time of her medical school.  Jon and Angela’s efforts led to the following publications:

Purcell JB, Patel M, Khera A, de Lemos J, Forbess LW, Baker S, Cabell CH, Peterson GE.  Relation of Troponin Elevation to Outcome in Patients with Infective Endocarditis.  American Journal of Cardiology, 101 (10):1479-81, 2008.

Shiue AB, Stancoven AB, Purcell JB, Pinkston K, Want A, Khera A, de Lemos JA, Peterson GE.  Relation of level of B-type natriuretic peptide with outcomes in patients with infective endocarditis.  Am J Cardiol. 2010 Oct 1;106(7):1011-5.

Stancoven AB, Shiue AB, Khera A, Pinkston R, Hashim IA, Wang A, de Lemos JA, Peterson GE.  Association of Troponin T Detected with a Highly Sensitive Assay and Outcomes in Infective Endocarditis. Am J Cardiol. 2011 Aug 1;108(3):416-20.