Fairly early on during the recruitment of patients into MaGiCAD, we started asking patients if we could contact their partner to recruit the partner into MaGiCAD.  The partners of patients are an important control group in the MaGiCAD study.  They represent the typical resident of East Anglia in the same age group as the MaGiCAD patients.  Note that it does not matter if the partners are healthy, or even if they have heart disease - indeed we anticipate some of them having heart disease and possibly being patients at Papworth themselves!  However, the importance of this control group is that it is representative of all East Anglian residents in the same age group as the MaGiCAD patients.  Once again, we say a big thank you to all of the partners of patients who have agreed to help us with the study.

To date we have asked 682 patients if their partner would be happy to take part in MaGiCAD.  Nearly 50% of you said "Yes, you may contact my partner".  Since then, we have asked 131 partner of patients if they would like to come in and help us with the study.  About 40% of you have kindly agreed to give up your time and come back in to provide blood and urine samples, and to date we have collected samples from over 50 partners of patients.

Our ultimate aim is to recruit 50 male and 50 female partners of patients.  Our recruitment of women so far has been brilliant - we are well on the way to the 50 female partners.  Unfortunately, we are a little behind on the recruitment of men, but should just about reach the 50 partners by the end of the study.

If you have would like more information on the partner study please click here.