ClinicalTrials.gg
TerminatedNCT03955432LOOPUpdated Feb 8, 2023

Long-term Cardiac Monitoring in Epilepsy

An interventional study of Reveal LINQ ICM System in Focal Epilepsy, Intractable Epilepsy and Epileptic Encephalopathy, sponsored by Northwell Health. Terminated at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 50 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2023-02-08.

Sponsored by Northwell Health · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

Why this study was terminated
not enough recruit

From the registry’s dates

  • Primary completion was Nov 2022, 4 years ago, and no results have been posted to the registry.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
7
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years to 50 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this research study to investigate, classify, and quantify chronic cardiac rhythm disorders in three groups of patients with epilepsy (intractable focal epilepsy, controlled focal epilepsy and symptomatic generalized epilepsy). Patients with epilepsy have a higher risk for cardiac complications than the general population. With this study, we aim to understand more about these potential complications in patients with epilepsy and assess if treatments for cardiac problems should be evaluated more carefully in patients with epilepsy.

Read the detailed description

Most cardiac studies have investigated patients with intractable focal epilepsy who have a high risk for co-morbidities, accidents, injury and SUDEP. This is confounded by the major antiepileptic drug burden in this population. Very little, however, is known about the risk of cardiac arrhythmias in patients with a lower seizure burden, i.e. patients with infrequent focal seizures and/or those without secondarily generalized convulsions. Furthermore, no chronic cardiac data is available in patients with epileptic encephalopathies especially given the fact that some of these patients are known to carry mutations that increase the risk for cardiac arrhythmias.In addition, periods of reduced cerebral blood flow during tachy or brady arrhythmias may exacerbate seizure severity and during. Diagnosing and treating these arrhythmias may not only prevent adverse cardiac events, but also reduce seizure burden. This study primarily aims to compare the frequency of cardiac rhythm abnormalities in patients with epilepsy of different severity, assess the long-term cardiac risk and evaluate the possible preventive role of anti-arrhythmic agents and/or cardiac pacemaker/defibrillator needs.

02

Conditions studied

  • Focal Epilepsy
  • Intractable Epilepsy
  • Epileptic Encephalopathy
  • Lennox Gastaut Syndrome
  • Symptomatic Epilepsy
  • Generalized Epilepsy
03

In context

Epilepsies, Partial

243 studies on the registry are indexed under Epilepsies, Partial; 49 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 7 is below the median of 90 across 187 interventional studies indexed under Epilepsies, Partial.

Browse Epilepsies, Partial studies →

Lead sponsor

Northwell Health is the lead sponsor of 475 studies on the registry; 107 are open to participants now.

Of its 45 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 23 (51%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 50 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Age 18-50 years with ability to consent.
  2. No primary cardiac abnormality.
  3. Ability to receive an implantable loop recorder and tolerate the procedure.
  4. Patients with epilepsy as described by the three groups (intractable focal epilepsy, controlled focal epilepsy and symptomatic generalized epilepsy)

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Cardiac disease of any type
  2. Known epilepsy genetic disorder with potential cardiac compromise
  3. Major co-morbidities such as cancer, diabetes, stroke, bleeding disorder
  4. Chronic psychosis
  5. Severe MR without reliable caregiver monitoring (what is MR?)
  6. Already included in another clinical trial that will affect the objectives of this study.
  7. is less than 1 year
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Life expectancy

The study doctor’s estimate of how long someone is likely to live. Criteria use it so that people can stay in the study long enough for it to answer its question.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
7 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    LINQ ICM

    The LINQ ICM (Medtronic, Inc.) is a small FDA approved cardiac monitor implanted in the subcutaneous tissue of the chest wall that is designed to continuously record a single-lead ECG, monitoring the cardiac rhythm for up to three years. The device records and stores patient's rhythm on two occasions: first when programmed criteria are met and second upon patient activation. These programmable arrhythmia criteria are based on heart rate (bradycardia, tachycardia), irregularity of heart rate and duration of rate disturbance. The LINQ ICM (or future iterations) will be utilized in this study to detect arrhythmias in our study population. The LINQ ICM is approved by the FDA for use in patients where there is a suspicion of occult cardiac arrhythmias and is therefore being utilized in this study in accordance with the FDA labeling.

    Device: Reveal LINQ ICM System

Interventions

  • DeviceReveal LINQ ICM System

    The LINQ ICM (Medtronic, Inc.) is a small FDA approved cardiac monitor implanted in the subcutaneous tissue of the chest wall that is designed to continuously record a single-lead ECG, monitoring the cardiac rhythm for up to three years. The device records and stores patient's rhythm on two occasions: first when programmed criteria are met and second upon patient activation. These programmable arrhythmia criteria are based on heart rate (bradycardia, tachycardia), irregularity of heart rate and duration of rate disturbance. The LINQ ICM (or future iterations) will be utilized in this study to detect arrhythmias in our study population.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Incidence rate of an event (i.e., arrhythmia or seizure)

    Ratio of the total number of observed events divided by the number of person-days at risk in that group. Arrhythmias will be classified into different categories based on the observed data. "Arrhythmia of any type", as well as specific categories of arrhythmias will be analyzed separately.

    Time frame: During the two years of monitoring

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Northwell
    New York, New York 10075, United States
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Antzelevitch C, Burashnikov A. Overview of Basic Mechanisms of Cardiac Arrhythmia. Card Electrophysiol Clin. 2011 Mar 1;3(1):23-45. doi: 10.1016/j.ccep.2010.10.012. No abstract available. PubMed 21892379 ↗
  • Heron SE, Scheffer IE, Berkovic SF, Dibbens LM, Mulley JC. Channelopathies in idiopathic epilepsy. Neurotherapeutics. 2007 Apr;4(2):295-304. doi: 10.1016/j.nurt.2007.01.009. PubMed 17395140 ↗
  • Tao JX, Qian S, Baldwin M, Chen XJ, Rose S, Ebersole SH, Ebersole JS. SUDEP, suspected positional airway obstruction, and hypoventilation in postictal coma. Epilepsia. 2010 Nov;51(11):2344-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1528-1167.2010.02719.x. Epub 2010 Sep 24. PubMed 21175606 ↗
  • DeGiorgio CM, DeGiorgio AC. SUDEP and heart rate variability. Epilepsy Res. 2010 Aug;90(3):309-10; author reply 311-2. doi: 10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2010.03.013. Epub 2010 Apr 15. No abstract available. PubMed 20399076 ↗
  • So NK, Sperling MR. Ictal asystole and SUDEP. Neurology. 2007 Jul 31;69(5):423-4. doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000268698.04032.bc. No abstract available. PubMed 17664399 ↗
  • Drake ME, Reider CR, Kay A. Electrocardiography in epilepsy patients without cardiac symptoms. Seizure. 1993 Mar;2(1):63-5. doi: 10.1016/s1059-1311(05)80104-9. PubMed 8162376 ↗
  • Tavernor SJ, Brown SW, Tavernor RM, Gifford C. Electrocardiograph QT lengthening associated with epileptiform EEG discharges--a role in sudden unexplained death in epilepsy? Seizure. 1996 Mar;5(1):79-83. doi: 10.1016/s1059-1311(96)80067-7. PubMed 8777558 ↗
  • Neufeld G, Lazar JM, Chari G, Kamran H, Akajagbor E, Salciccioli L, Kassotis J, Stewart M. Cardiac repolarization indices in epilepsy patients. Cardiology. 2009;114(4):255-60. doi: 10.1159/000233236. Epub 2009 Aug 12. PubMed 19672064 ↗
  • Akalin F, Tirtir A, Yilmaz Y. Increased QT dispersion in epileptic children. Acta Paediatr. 2003 Aug;92(8):916-20. doi: 10.1080/08035250310003550. PubMed 12948066 ↗
  • Nei M, Sperling MR, Mintzer S, Ho RT. Long-term cardiac rhythm and repolarization abnormalities in refractory focal and generalized epilepsy. Epilepsia. 2012 Aug;53(8):e137-40. doi: 10.1111/j.1528-1167.2012.03561.x. Epub 2012 Jun 18. PubMed 22709423 ↗
  • Johnson JN, Tester DJ, Bass NE, Ackerman MJ. Cardiac channel molecular autopsy for sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. J Child Neurol. 2010 Jul;25(7):916-21. doi: 10.1177/0883073809343722. Epub 2010 Apr 15. PubMed 20395638 ↗
  • Velagapudi P, Turagam M, Laurence T, Kocheril A. Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). Pacing Clin Electrophysiol. 2012 Mar;35(3):363-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-8159.2011.03276.x. Epub 2011 Nov 29. PubMed 22126214 ↗
  • Surges R, Henneberger C, Adjei P, Scott CA, Sander JW, Walker MC. Do alterations in inter-ictal heart rate variability predict sudden unexpected death in epilepsy? Epilepsy Res. 2009 Dec;87(2-3):277-80. doi: 10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2009.08.008. Epub 2009 Sep 10. PubMed 19747799 ↗
  • Rugg-Gunn FJ, Simister RJ, Squirrell M, Holdright DR, Duncan JS. Cardiac arrhythmias in focal epilepsy: a prospective long-term study. Lancet. 2004 Dec 18-31;364(9452):2212-9. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17594-6. PubMed 15610808 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Feb 8, 2023, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03955432
Lead sponsor
Northwell Health
Collaborators
Medtronic
Responsible party
Ruben Kuzniecky (Vice Chairperson, Neurology, Northwell Health) — Principal investigator
First posted
May 20, 2019
Start date
Mar 19, 2019
Primary completion
Nov 1, 2022
Completion
Jan 3, 2023
Last update
Feb 8, 2023

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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