Professional Interests
- Heart failure
- Heart transplant
- Mechanical circulatory support
- Prognosis research
- Systematic reviews and meta-analysis
Research Interests
Dr. Carolina Alba’s main research interest revolves around adequate prognosis assessment and outcomes in patients with heart failure and patients requiring advanced heart failure therapies. Heart failure is an exponentially growing medical and economic problem. One in five people over the age of 40 will develop HF in their lifespan. Mortality in patients with HF is higher than in most cancer patients. Currently, direct and indirect costs of treating HF are approximately 3 billion dollars in Canada. Optimal management of patients with HF is crucial to improve outcomes and reduce costs and depends on adequate assessment of each patient’s mortality risk to decide on appropriate testing and intervention. Accurate estimation of mortality risk in patients with heart failure is key to guide management and to allow patients and physicians to make informed decisions about the appropriateness of medical plan.
Impact
Dr. Alba has received research grants as principal investigator and salary support from the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
Dr. Alba’s research has led to multiple national and international collaborations on projects evaluating factors impacting prognosis in specific heart failure populations as well in patients undergoing heart transplantation or mechanical circulatory support.
Dr. Alba has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers; 60% of original papers have been published in journals with impact factor greater than 5. She has presented her work in many conference abstracts and national and international invited presentations. Her work has been cited ~2,000 times in the peer-reviewed literature.
In her research program, Dr. Alba has supervised more than 30 undergrad students; approximately 75% of them have successfully pursued a medical degree, master, or doctoral education; and 20% have received scholarships. Dr. Alba has also co-supervised a doctorate student and Masters students pursuing degrees in Clinical Epidemiology. She has acted as a thesis reviewer for national and international universities.