Handheld Device Detects Heart Attacks

A new handheld blood test device is able to rapidly diagnosis heart attacks at the point of care, and has been specifically designed for use in emergency departments to dramatically reduce the time physicians take to diagnose heart attacks.

For patients presenting at emergency departments with chest pains, the device can be used to administer an immediate test, with results delivered while the patient is being assessed and a medical history taken and this reduces the time for the physician to decide on treatment.

The new system works by measuring the level of cardiac troponin I (cTnI), a protein that is excreted by the heart muscle into the blood following a heart attack. Current guidelines for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction require blood test results of the biomarker cardiac troponin for the 90% of patients who present at the emergency department (ED) with chest pain but are not diagnosed by an electrocardiogram (ECG). Physicians often have to wait up to six hours before it can be decided if they can safely discharge the patients or if they need to admit them into the hospital for further tests.

The use of device, called the Minicare I-20 cTnI (Philips Healthcare, Amsterdam. The Netherlands) supports a reduction of the diagnostic protocol by up to three hours. Each blood test has dedicated software and a single use, disposable cartridge containing the application-specific test. The technology has been designed to detect multiple target molecules at low concentrations within the same blood sample and to show the results on the device's display within minutes. For high-risk cardiac patients, such as those with Acute Coronary Syndrome, fast triage and rapid initiation of treatment are critical in order to improve patient outcomes and to save lives. Only 10% of chest pain patients can be diagnosed using an ECG. The rest need to rely on additional cardiac marker testing for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction.

Paul O Collinson MA MB BChir FRCPath MD FACB FRCP, the Consultant Chemical Pathologist and Professor of. Cardiovascular Biomarkers, at St. George's University Hospitals (London, UK,), said, “Blood samples are usually analyzed in the hospital laboratory, which can easily take more than an hour to get the result back to the ED physician. Point-of-care testing can significantly help to reduce the turnaround time.”

Related Links:
Philips Healthcare
St. George's University Hospitals