NCT07118410Recruiting
Resistance Exercise With Blood Flow Restriction by Vascular Occlusion on Myocardial Function in Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction
Effect of Resistance Exercise With Blood Flow Restriction by Vascular Occlusion on Myocardial Function in Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Last updated 21 Oct 2026
Brief summary (registry, in English)
Exercise is essential in cardiac rehabilitation for heart failure patients.Aerobic training and resistance training are both recommended. Resistance training improves muscle mass and strength and also improves the remodeling of cardiac function, thus reducing exercise intolerance in these patients. However, to obtain these adaptations, resistance training must be done at moderate to high intensities, which cannot always be sustained by the most fragile and deconditioned patients, such as those with reduced ejection fraction (Heart failure with reduced Ejection Fraction). Blood flow restriction (BFR) by vascular occlusion training is an interesting alternative to conventional resistance training for these deconditioned patients. Preclinical and clinical studies have shown that, for low-intensity regimens, resistance training and blood flow restriction by vascular occlusion improves muscle strength and left ventricular function, unlike resistance training alone. Tissue hypoxemia, initiated by vascular occlusion and exacerbated by maintenance of exercise, is a key element in the peripheral adaptations documented in blood flow restriction, triggering a cascade of signaling pathways involving neurohumoral factors in particular, with effects both locally (i.e. striated skeletal muscle) and remotely, on the myocardium among others. The feasibility and safety of blood flow restriction in heart failure patients has been well demonstrated. Left ventricle ejection fraction remains a very global functional index, with poor reproducibility influenced by cardiac load conditions, making it impossible to draw any conclusions as to possible improvements in myocardial function, linked to changes in intrinsic tissue decontractility/relaxation properties. New cardiac imaging techniques like Speckle Tracking Echography have made it possible to assess the effects of blood flow resistance on myocardial function but so far no studies have used these tools to compare the effects of BFR+resistance training and resistance training alone on myocardial function in heart failure patients. It is suggested that resistance training combined with blood flow resistance could further improve cardiac and muscular function compared with resistance training alone, by activating neurohumoral mediators, like certain micro ribonucleic acids.
- Status (registry)
- Recruiting
- Study type
- Interventional
- Enrollment
- 38 (estimated)
- First submitted
- 1 Aug 2025
- Start date
- 5 Dec 2025
- Primary completion date
- 5 Dec 2027
- Lead sponsor
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes
- Diseases
- Heart failure
- NCT number
- NCT07118410
What you commit to
- Study type: Interventional
- Planned participants: 38
- From 5 Dec 2025 to the primary completion date, 5 Dec 2027
- 1 site in 1 country
- Visits and tests: ask the trial team, the registry does not list them
Built from the registry fields of ClinicalTrials.gov. It describes the study, not your situation.
Who cannot take part
Copied verbatim from ClinicalTrials.gov and grouped by topic. Only the trial team decides who can take part.
Prior treatment
- Patient in an exclusion period determined by a previous study
- Medication known to alter the effects of ischemic conditioning (cyclosporine, glibenclamide).
Other illness
- Moderate to severe peripheral arterial disease. Arterial Doppler scan for arterial stenosis, with measurement of femoral and distal flows.
- Active or recent deep vein thrombosis. Check with venous Doppler ultrasound, looking for venous compressibility at the roots of the thighs, and 4-point venous ultrasound.
- Uncontrolled arterial hypertension
- Severe valvular disease
Other
- Patient participating in another Category I interventional study, or having participated in another interventional study in the last month
- Patient under court protection, guardianship or curatorship
- Unable to provide informed consent, or patient refuses to sign consent form
- Pregnant, parturient or breast-feeding patient
Who the study is looking for
- LVEF ≤ 50%
- Patients with an indication for cardiovascular rehabilitation in the first stay or not (according to national recommendations, as soon as possible after an exacerbation or at any time in a patient with chronic heart failure) (Bigot et al., 2024)
- No medical contraindication to physical activity
- Patient has given free and informed consent and signed the consent form
- Patient affiliated with or benefiting from a health insurance scheme
Age in the registry: 18 years to 80 years · Sex: All · Does not accept healthy volunteers
Sites (1)
Sites in registry order. Pick your city on the disease page to sort them by distance.
| Site | City | Country | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nîmes University Hospital Coordinator of this site? Confirm its status | Nîmes | France | Recruiting |
This page is information, not medical advice. Discuss any trial with your doctor.