The Heart Institute at Children’s Hospital Colorado is changing the way the world treats children with heart conditions. Our research has redefined how we look at pediatric heart conditions and changed expectations for what we can achieve for children with cardiac complications.

Not long ago, some heart conditions meant that a child wouldn’t get the chance to lead a happy, healthy adult life. We established the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program because through groundbreaking research and improved treatment, we are seeing more children born with congenital heart disease (CHD) grow into healthy adults. As a leading children’s hospital with a robust cardiology research program, we have the unique advantage of treating children throughout their whole lives and learning what treatment looks like in adulthood.

What our heart research means for kids

The Heart Institute is continuously conducting research to determine the best ways to care for children with congenital or acquired heart disease. We are participating in more than 70 research studies at any given time in the Heart Institute, more than half of which are actively enrolling patients for clinical research. These studies cover a wide range of areas, from examining cells in the heart and performing clinical trials for new medications to researching devices used to treat heart problems.

Funding for the Heart Institute research portfolio comes from many different sources, including grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Additional Ventures, Department of Defense and other research foundations, as well as support from our hospital and private donors through our foundation. With the help of funding from a variety of sources and the families and children who participate in our research, we are continuously improving the way we diagnose and treat heart conditions in children. Our research specifically dedicated to pediatric cardiology means more kids with heart disease survive and thrive.

Partnerships to advance research

Children’s Colorado’s Heart Institute is part of the Pediatric Heart Network (PHN), a group of leading hospitals working to improve outcomes and quality of life for children with heart disease. One of just nine PHN core sites in the country, we are participating in PHN-led clinical studies that will help advance the field of pediatric cardiology for decades to come. Through this partnership, we are also bringing cutting-edge treatments, trials and studies to our patients, and as a selected congenital heart center, we are aiding in multisite research in pediatric and congenital heart disease projects.

Cardiology advancements at the Heart Institute

From our research on single ventricle heart disease to pulmonary hypertension, we’re innovating new treatments and perfecting existing ones. The more children with complex heart conditions thrive, the more we learn about the conditions themselves and the better we understand how to manage them. With programs like the Cardiac Genetics and Aortopathy Program, we’re unlocking even more mysteries and gaining a deeper understanding of cardiology. The Heart Institute is constantly helping to expand the world’s knowledge of the human heart and continuously improving the treatment we provide children with heart conditions.

Using data to advance cardiac research

The complexity of congenital heart disease makes it a great candidate for omics research, which is using biochemistry data to understand the disease on a larger scale. Our researchers are using data to understand heart conditions the same way big companies have used data to understand trends in the market. Omics research can be used to understand the biological systems affected in complex diseases and to study underlying disease mechanisms, eventually pointing the way to new medical treatments.

Congenital heart disease

Children’s Colorado is a national leader in CHD research and a member of Cardiac Networks United, a group of collaboratives aimed at improving the outcomes of patients with congenital and acquired heart disease.

As part of this network, we have helped improve the care of patients with CHD, not only at Children’s Colorado, but across the nation. Our work has allowed us to identify practice variation between centers and best practices for diagnosing, treating and preventing morbidity and mortality. 

Through our participation in Cardiac Networks United, we have successfully decreased the incidence of CICU cardiac arrest, improved outcomes for our single ventricle population and improved outcomes for our patients with ventricular assist devices. We are currently participating in a wide array of multicenter quality improvement initiatives, from decreasing opioid and benzodiazepine exposure in CICU patients to defining best practices for treating chylothorax.

Children and adults with CHD require specialized techniques to manage their unique heart rhythm abnormalities. Through our research, our electrophysiology team has led the way in developing novel strategies to diagnose, treat and manage these complex patients. Using machine learning and collaboration with biomedical engineering, our team is discovering clues that can predict the onset of diastolic dysfunction and potentially prevent the development of sudden cardiac death or progressive cardiac disease.

Single ventricle heart conditions

Our multidisciplinary team of pediatric subspecialists has helped advance our understanding of how the Fontan circulation affects quality of life, school performance and development, as well as its impact on other organs in the body. As the third and final procedure used to surgically treat the single ventricle heart disease, hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), understanding the impacts of the Fontan procedure and how it can create problems that affect circulation and other organs is extremely important.

Our team has produced several studies on the Fontan procedure to help provide a comprehensive look at how the surgical procedures necessary to treat HLHS can affect other systems of the body and we continue to learn exciting insights into how we can improve outcomes after surgery.

Read our published single ventricle research studies

Heart failure and transplant

The doctors, scientists and nurses in our Pediatric Cardiovascular Research Laboratory perform basic and translational research that enhances understanding of the mechanisms underlying pediatric heart failure and identifies unique age- and disease-specific diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic approaches that will improve outcomes. 

Our work focuses on the two most important causes of heart failure in children: dilated cardiomyopathy and single ventricle congenital heart disease, such as hypoplastic left heart syndrome. We are uniquely positioned to perform this research at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Colorado through the use of our extensive bank of human heart tissue. 

Read our published heart failure and transplant research studies

Cardiac intensive care

The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) continues to be integral to our cardiology research. They have run an international survey on the use of vasopressin in patients with single ventricle CHD, looking at the use of vasopressin in this patient population. The team is also part of multicenter studies involving topics such as high-fidelity simulation and automated data extraction. In addition to taking part in multicenter studies, our CICU team pioneers novel applications, such as using multiomics technology to explore the complex mechanisms underlying acute postoperative organ injury and the molecular determinants of transition from acute injury to chronic multiorgan dysfunction.

Read our published CICU research studies

Kawasaki disease and MIS-C research

We are national leaders in care and research focused on Kawasaki disease (KD) and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

Our Kawasaki Disease Clinic, a collaboration between the Heart Institute and our Infectious Disease Program, has enabled us to take a unified approach to caring for patients with KD. We are also actively involved in KD research to help improve patient quality, management and outcomes, which includes collaborating with many different organizations, including:

• The American College of Cardiology Quality Network (ACC QNet), to improve outpatient quality metrics in taking care of KD patients
• The American Heart Association, to help differentiate KD and other childhood febrile illnesses  
• The International Kawasaki Disease Registry (IKDR), to collect data on outcomes in KD coronary artery aneurysms and medical management

With MIS-C, a severe multisystem hyperinflammatory illness temporally associated with preceding severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or exposure, patients have cardiac dysfunction and coronary artery dilations or aneurysms similar to KD patients. Our research has demonstrated that MIS-C patients have better recovery and outcomes after receiving dual therapy (intravenous immunoglobulin and infliximab) at diagnosis. MIS-C patients are less likely to require additional therapy, have decreased development of heart dysfunction, have a more rapid decline in inflammation, and have a decreased intensive care unit length of stay.

Read our published Kawasaki research studies

Interventional cardiology research and advanced cardiac imaging

Our interventional cardiology research helps us provide advanced treatment options for our patients and we also share our expertise with pediatric experts nationwide so all children can benefit from our research insights. Our physicians also contribute to published research and national and international conferences regarding interventional cardiology research, are among the leading study recruiters in multicenter trials for cutting-edge equipment and procedures and have access to all FDA-approved and in-trial percutaneous pulmonary valve devices in the United States.

Our laboratory resources such as a 3D printing workshop allow us to explore 3D rotational angiography, and we have made major advancements in understanding single ventricle heart disease and pulmonary hypertension through advanced imaging techniques. For example, our team has been able to use cardiac MRI to link ventricular dyssynchrony, aortic arch geometry and flow propagation through the body to important clinical outcomes regarding single ventricle heart disease using 3D intracardiac echocardiography.

In children and adolescents with pulmonary hypertension, our team has used a combination of 2D, 3D and 4D imaging based on echocardiography and cardiac MRI platforms to validate new ways to measure the many facets of cardiac muscle function. Following these metrics over time helps us identify patients at risk for acute events before they happen.

Read about innovations in congenital interventional cardiology

Cardiovascular genetics

Cardiovascular genetics is a rapidly evolving field within pediatric cardiology. Our top cardiac geneticists have created the Cardiac Genetics Program to help us stay at the forefront of this specialty and help us uncover more about the heart through genetics. Our active research programs focus on several projects, including:

• Genetic factors that contribute to heart failure in dilated cardiomyopathy and hypoplastic left heart syndrome
• The role of genetic diagnosis for patients who need a heart transplant
• The role of genetic diagnosis in outcomes of infants under 6 months of age who require surgery for congenital heart disease
• Outcomes of multidisciplinary care teams in Turner syndrome, Noonan syndrome and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia
• The role of disease-specific treatment of cardiac, vascular and lymphatic disease in RASopathy disorders