Registry following people with heart muscle diseases to study their condition over time
Collects health data and samples from adults with cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle.
Plain-language title generated from the registry record
Registry title: DZHK TORCH-Plus is a Registry for Patients With Cardiomyopathies and Serves as Source for Cardiovascular Research Studies
Key facts
- Where
- Heidelberg, GermanySee the site
AI summary: who the study is looking for
From the trial's eligibility criteria. Machine-read from the registry text on this page, so it can be wrong. The registry text below and the trial team decide who can take part.
The trial is looking for adults with a heart muscle disease that is not caused by blocked heart arteries, such as dilated, hypertrophic, amyloid, LVNC or ARVC cardiomyopathy.
- Age
- 18 to 80 years
- Sex
- Men and women can join.
- Disease stage
- Non-ischemic structural cardiomyopathy, such as dilated cardiomyopathy (family or genetic, inflammatory or persistent myocarditis, idiopathic, or left-sided systolic dysfunction with EF ≤ 45%), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM, HOCM), amyloid heart disease (AL or TTR), LVNC or ARVC/D.
Main reasons for not taking part
- Age under 18 or over 80 years
- Uncontrollable high blood pressure or primary pulmonary arterial hypertension
- Significant heart valve disease, ischemic heart disease or severe congenital heart disease
- Radiation therapy to the chest, chemotoxic cardiomyopathy, or condition after myocarditis
- Drug or alcohol abuse, or life expectancy under 1 year due to non-heart conditions
Read by machine on 12 November 2026.
Could this be for you?
Answer for yourself. This is not a decision: only the study team can say whether you can take part.
- Are you between 18 and 80 years old?
Source: NCT04265040, who can take part
Where in Germany
- University Hospital Heidelberg - Clinic of Cardiology, Angiology and PneumologyHeidelberg, GermanyContact: Farbod Sedaghat-Hamedani, Dr.Taking people
Questions to ask the study team
- How often do I need to come in, and for how long each time?
- Are travel costs paid?
- Can I keep my own doctor?
- What happens if I want to stop?
Contact the study team: see the registry record → Contacts and Locations
Print a page for my doctorTrial details
- Who runs it
- University Hospital Heidelberg
- Trial code
- NCT04265040
- Record updated
- 30 November 2023
- Original description
The DZHK TranslatiOnal Registry for CardiomyopatHies (DZHK TORCH) represents a unique resource of clinical data and high quality biological samples to enable innovative clinical and molecular studies on cardiomyopathies (CMP). As a multi-center German cardiomyopathy registry, TORCH has been prospectively admitting patients since December 2014. 2,300 patients were recruited as planned. Taken together, patient data showed that the prevalence of these diseases is much higher in men than in women, atrial fibrillation is common in all forms of CMPs as well as rare forms of disease indicate a higher risk and higher morbidity.Read full original descriptionShow less
TranslatiOnal Registry for CardiomyopatHies (TORCH) - Plus as Part of the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK)
The DZHK TranslatiOnal Registry for CardiomyopatHies (DZHK TORCH) represents a unique resource of clinical data and high quality biological samples to enable innovative clinical and molecular studies on cardiomyopathies (CMP). As a multi-center German cardiomyopathy registry, TORCH has been prospectively admitting patients since December 2014. 2,300 patients were recruited as planned. Taken together, patient data showed that the prevalence of these diseases is much higher in men than in women, atrial fibrillation is common in all forms of CMPs as well as rare forms of disease indicate a higher risk and higher morbidity.
This DZHK TORCH register is now to be expanded with a second phase (DZHK TORCH-Plus). The second phase DZHK TORCH-Plus consists of 4 main modules: 1. "Clinical phenotyping, follow-up \& biosampling" 2. "Genomics", 3. "Inflammation" and 4. "Biomarker". The central aims are 1) to significantly increase the number of probands (n = 4340) in order to better address the different types of CMPs, especially patients with rare CMP forms such as LVNC and ARVC or with probably molecularly explainable cardiomyopathies (familial DCM), 2) to prolong the longitudinal with a further follow-up to achieve sufficient events and thereby derive clinical recommendations for risk assessment, 3) to increase the number of probands with state-of-the-art phenotyping, 4) to pinpoint the effect of myocardial inflammation, fibrosis, gender and to determine or predict genotypes based for outcome, 5) to validate novel biomarkers developed in other DZHK studies, and 6) to foster active cooperation with international CMP registries and partners from industry.
Inclusion: Non-ischemic structural cardiomyopathies; Age ≥ 18 or ≤ 80 years; The patient is able to understand the declaration of consent and to sign it dated; At least one of the following diagnoses depending on the specific TORCH-; Plus inclusion / exclusion - SOP:; Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM); family / genetic; inflammatory / persistent myocarditis; idiopathic (after exclusion secondary cause); left sided systolic dysfunction (EF ≤ 45%); Left ventricular hypertrophy; sarcomere hypertrophic cardiomoypathia (HCM, HOCM); amyloid (AL: light chains, TTR: transthyretin, wild type); Left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC); Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC / D).
Exclusion: Patient has other (cardiac) previous illnesses:; uncontrollable arterial hypertension; primary pulmonary arterial hypertension; radiation therapy in the chest area; addiction (drug or alcohol abuse); life expectancy <1 year due to non-cardiological pre-existing conditions; significant heart valve disease; ischemic diseases and severe congenital heart diseases (including VSD, Fallot tetralogy, Ebstein anomaly); chemotoxic cardiomyopathy; condition after myocarditis; combination of several traditional risk factors (e.g. hypertension and diabetes mellitus); advanced chronic non-cardiac disease (e.g. chronic hepatitis or HIV); Tachymyopathy; Age: <18 years or> 80 years; The following exclusion criteria have been defined and must be taken from the TORCH-Plus specific inclusion / exclusion - SOP in detail:.