Cardiology

Codi servei:

Recerca:

The Cardiology Service has a well-established track record focused on the comprehensive management of cardiac diseases, particularly myocardial infarction and heart failure, combining basic, translational and clinical research. Its work is focused on finding innovative solutions for the regeneration of cardiac tissue through cell therapies, biomaterials and advanced tissue engineering techniques.

From this perspective, the group has driven pioneering human studies through clinical trials that have enabled the translation of laboratory-developed strategies into clinical practice, including the implantation of biological scaffolds into the heart after a heart attack. Clinical research is an essential part of their work, with a focus on the design, execution and monitoring of clinical trials aimed at evaluating new therapies and improving medical practice in the cardiovascular field.

The Service also conducts research in emerging areas such as the development of cardiac organoids, the non-invasive monitoring of implanted devices, the study of the heart's electrical activity, the design of new drugs for heart failure and the analysis of immunological and metabolic mechanisms related to these diseases. It has a specialised facility that provides technical and methodological support for clinical trials and a platform focused on personalised medicine, which works on the identification and validation of biomarkers to optimise diagnosis, risk stratification, patient monitoring, and treatment personalisation in the context of cardiovascular diseases.

It carries out all this activity through the ICREC (Heart Failure and Cardiac Regeneration) Research Lab, a multidisciplinary research group whose aim is to investigate new treatments and diagnostic tools for cardiovascular diseases from different perspectives. It opened its doors in January 2002 and, in 2010, ICREC moved its activities to the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP).

Under the direction of Dr Antoni Bayés-Genís, its current research activity is coordinated by Dr Carolina Gálvez Montón and Dr Santiago Roura Ferrer, and the ICREC team is currently made up of multidisciplinary researchers, doctoral students, laboratory technicians and support administrative staff.

Presentation:

The Cardiology Service is part of the Clinical Directorate of the Heart Area.

The Cardiology team works to provide excellent care to people living in the North Metropolitan Area of Catalonia who have cardiovascular diseases. It does so with the aim of being a modern service, offering highly specialised medicine and working in coordination with other healthcare services in the region.

To this end, to be internationally competitive and to serve as a training ground for physician-researchers where research and innovation are inseparable, all professionals work guided by the following strategic lines:

  • To achieve an organisational model that is competitive, open and dynamic, patient-centred and accessible to the population
  • Coordinate and provide specialised care to cardiovascular patients in the area, both in hospital and in primary care
  • Be a centre of reference for the comprehensive care of patients with complex cardiovascular health problems (i.e. tertiary level)
  • Carry out research projects into new technologies for cardiovascular diagnosis and treatment
  • Obtain external funding to finance cardiovascular research, both in the clinical and basic research fields
  • Integrate patient care with undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and with clinical-epidemiological and basic cardiovascular research

More information on the iCor website.

 
Highlights from the department

Tipus Servei: 10

Correu: cardiologia.germanstrias@gencat.cat

Docència:

Undergraduate teaching

The Heart Institute of Germans Trias, and the Cardiology Department in particular, is involved in the university education of future doctors: it teaches the Medicine and Surgery I module at the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, on the Can Ruti Campus. The course is taught by Professor Antoni Bayés Genís, Clinical Director of iCor, and Doctors Cosme Garcia and Elisabet Zamora are associate professors.
 
In addition, the department collaborates with the Col·legi Sant Miquel dels Sants (Vic) so that some of its students have the opportunity to carry out their baccalaureate research project under the supervision of the researchers from the ICREC Group.

 

Postgraduate teaching

The service has been hosting cardiology residents since 1993 and currently trains three new residents each year. 

 The service's staff actively participate in the supervision and tutoring of various doctoral theses.  

The department also has two research lines included in the PhD programmes of the Department of Medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB): 

  • Cardiac regeneration with stem cells, cell therapy and tissue engineering.
  • Heart Failure: New diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers.

 

Residents information

  • See the Teaching Guide.
  • Find out what our residents think about the Cardiology service of the Germans Trias.

 

► Read the top stories from the Cardiology residents at Hospital Germans Trias

 

Continuous training

One of the pillars that reinforces the training of professionals in the Cardiology service is the continuing education policy through weekly sessions on the different areas covered by iCor.

Once a month, these sessions are held in the auditorium of the Germans Trias Hospital and are open to all interested healthcare staff. Both junior doctors and the professionals who make up the Heart Area are trained on the latest advances and updates.

In addition, the department also runs courses, workshops, and Cardiology Days which are open to professionals from both the iCor and the rest of the hospital, as well as to external attendees at the Can Ruti Campus.