果冻影院

Researchers at 果冻影院, in collaboration with colleagues at and , have carried out the first clinical tests of a new device to help diagnose heart disease more easily and accurately.

Heart disease is particularly common in women but is often missed due to the vagueness of symptoms and a lack of awareness relating to the condition. Having access to more accurate information on the health of a person鈥檚 heart will allow doctors to better decide what course of treatment to prescribe 鈥� medication, surgery or indeed, if the patient can stop their medication.

The new device, called iKOr, uses a fibre optic sensor and a very thin catheter to check a person鈥檚 blood pressure, look for narrowing of the arteries and can even identify problems with the smallest of heart vessels. The device has a temperature and pressure sensor that is 0.2mm wide which is threaded through the patient鈥檚 blood vessels. It measures the flow rate around the heart and detects any obstructions in the vessels.

The first clinical test in two patients, carried out at St Bartholomew鈥檚 Hospital, found that it was successful at听finding problems with their 鈥渕icrovasculature鈥�. These tiny blood vessels do not show up well in the angiograms typically used by cardiologists to image the heart鈥檚 larger arteries.

Medical physicists from 果冻影院, including from 果冻影院 Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and the Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS), invented this fibre optic sensing technology and in 2019, they set up , a spinout company from 果冻影院 in partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust that has so far received around 拢4mn in funding and grants to carry out research and clinical testing.

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Lead iKOr developer,听Professor Adrien Desjardins, said: 鈥�The iKOr device is听responding to a clinical need 鈥� to significantly improve how blood flow in the heart is measured.

鈥淥ur microcatheter provides concurrent pressure and flow measurements from inside coronary arteries 鈥� this is unique and makes the tiny blood vessels more measurable, compared to traditional X-rays.听This will help to significantly improve diagnosis and treatment for a large group of patients; those with obstructive coronary artery disease and coronary microvascular dysfunction.

鈥淎n increasing body of evidence shows the importance of accurate assessments of the coronary microvasculature in targeting therapies, which has particular relevance to women and diabetic patients who are more likely to have microvascular dysfunction.

鈥淚n current clinical practice there is a potential for over diagnosis, resulting in invasive surgeries, such as stent insertion, that comes with risk and can take time to recover from," added Professor Desjardins.

Dr Malcom Finlay, a Consultant Cardiologist at St Bartholomew鈥檚 Hospital and Echopoint鈥檚 Chief Medical Officer said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 an incredible highlight of my career to see a technology that we invented in the hospital and university being used for the first time: from bedside to bench and back!

鈥淚t shows the real, tangible benefit that collaboration between NHS hospitals and universities can have for patients my colleagues and I see day in, day out. And it鈥檚 a great example of why it鈥檚 important to carry out research in the NHS. Thank you to the patients who have agreed to be involved in this research and everyone who believed in our vision.鈥�

This first phase of clinical testing will involve a further 8 patients and is likely to be completed by the end of May. Then, subject to regulatory approval, there will be a larger trial with 100 patients.

The iKOr device and underlying technology was developed through collaboration between 果冻影院 and Echopoint, Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University of London.

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