Study of Women With Acute Coronary Syndromes and Nonobstructive Coronary Artery Disease (SWAN)

June 4, 2026 updated by: NYU Langone Health

Approximately 600,000 women are treated for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) annually in the US. ACS includes heart attack and a milder form called unstable angina. Many of these women have angiograms of which 14-39% show no "significant" coronary artery disease (CAD, cholesterol plaque accumulation in arteries of the heart). The remaining majority of women with ACS have cholesterol plaque buildup which appears severe enough on angiography to limit blood flow to the heart.

It is difficult to advise women with heart attacks and no major heart artery blockages on what to do if chest pain happens again. Additional studies are needed to find out why this sort of heart attack happens and to help doctors understand how to treat patients who have this problem in the best possible way.

Some women with heart attacks who have no major blockage in heart arteries have cholesterol plaque in the arteries of the heart cannot be seen on angiography but can be seen using a newer technique called intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). IVUS involves creating pictures of the artery walls using ultrasound (sound waves) from within the artery itself. In some women without major heart artery blockage, heart attack is caused by low blood flow due to disease of smaller blood vessels which cannot be seen on angiography or IVUS. This problem can be found using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which can show blood flow to the heart. MRI may also be used to show where the heart has been damaged. The pattern of damage could suggest that a heart attack in a woman, who has no badly blocked heart arteries, happened for one (or more) of these reasons or another reason.

The Study of Women with ACS and Non-obstructive CAD (SWAN) will use IVUS and MRI to help determine the reasons for heart attacks in women with no major blockages in heart arteries.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

50

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10016
        • NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • women
  • positive cardiac markers and/or ST elevation
  • scheduled for angiography

Exclusion Criteria:

  • prior diagnosis of obstructive CAD
  • contraindication to IVUS and/or MRI
  • use of vasospastic agent

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Women
IVUS and MRI performed in women with no obstructive CAD at angiography
Procedure: Intravascular ultrasound
intravascular ultrasound
Procedure: MRI
cardiac MRI

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
IVUS and MRI findings
Time Frame: within one week of enrollment
within one week of enrollment

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

NYU Langone Health

Collaborators

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Harmony Reynolds, M.D., NYU Langone Health

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 1, 2006

Primary Completion (Actual)

September 6, 2011

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 24, 2008

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 24, 2008

First Posted (Estimated)

November 25, 2008

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 8, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 4, 2026

Last Verified

June 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 07-050
  • DD CSDA 2006066 (Other Grant/Funding Number: DORIS DUKE CHRTBL FND)

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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