The UK CARDIOvascular Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases (CARDIO-IMID) Registry

Multimorbidity is a rapidly growing burden on our healthcare systems, especially with an ageing demographic. CVD is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. The co-association of IMIDs with CVD needs more sophisticated understanding of the underlying risk, earlier identification and tailored use of targeted therapeutics. Importantly, the investigation of CVD in IMID offers an effective human experimental model to improve not just the lives of people with IMIDs but also the general CVD population.

The UK CARDIOvascular Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases (CARDIO-IMID) registry will be a key platform for United Kingdom (UK) multi-centre clinical and translational CARDIO-IMID research. The aim is that centres across the UK including all the devolved nations will collaborate and contribute patients such that the registry will provide deep phenotyping, linked to clinical outcomes, in, ultimately, many hundreds of patients. The planned study will establish a deeply phenotyped cohort and/or as part of the optional sub-study, an associated bioresource to support individual discrete studies and/or analyses that address the stated aims and objectives. All potential participants will be invited to participate in the longitudinal collection and evaluation of routine comprehensive clinical information, including pathology, imaging and other cardiovascular data. This programme will identify patients within defined IMID clinical cohorts at different stages of (rheumatology and cardiovascular) disease. These data will be invaluable in enabling a full characterisation of CVD in terms of the extent, presentation, risk factors, and pathophysiology. Patients are seen as per standard clinical practice determined by the index IMID and in this setting, also dependent on co-existing CV comorbidity, usually every 3-6 months at time of IMID/CVD diagnosis and then 6 to 12 monthly thereafter. Specific questionnaires and tests requested outside of standard of care (sub-studies) will depend on disease group and clinical context. Not all patients will be required to complete all the relevant questionnaires, instead, based on individual IMID and/or CVD profile.

In addition, there is the opportunity for subjects to include (i) longitudinal biological (blood) samples and (ii) extended cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging protocol for those receiving CMR as part of National Health Service (NHS) standard of care.

Collectively, the study and associated platform with appropriate biostatistical and machine learning approaches will inform on the pathophysiological sequence of events, identification of prognostic biomarkers and risk models; as well as enable evaluation of the influence of IMID-specific vascular +/- immunosuppressive therapies and traditional cardiac pharmacotherapy where indicated. It will also establish a platform for trials in IMIDs to capture CV outcomes. Moreover, it will provide cohorts of patients readily available for recruitment, with linkage in place for outcomes. It could be used to leverage commercial funding and participation, facilitated by simplified, single-point access for industry. It will enable scaled investigation aimed at understanding causes of CARDIO-IMID, improving risk stratification and providing better care.