HeartSounds, Inc.
Chicago, IL
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icuPATCH
Overview
Critical care is the specialized treatment of patients whose conditions are life-threatening and who require comprehensive care and constant monitoring, usually in intensive care units (ICUs). There are more than 4.4 million ICU admissions annually in the U.S. and the cost of treating these patients exceeds $90 billion. Of these admissions, the various forms of shock are among the most frequent diagnoses encountered. Prediction of responsiveness to fluid administration, inotropes or other cardiogenic medicaitons is a key component to the successful management of shock. Unfortunately, the gold standard for this care is a highly invasive technique known as pulmonary arterial catheterization (PAC). Given the danger and cost of administering the PAC, as well as the shortage of qualified intensivists, there exists a need for a cost-efficient, safe and efficacious metric of shock management.
Scientific Background
The cardiac pump system consists of two parallel circuits: The right side accepts oxygen-depleted blood returning from the body and pumps it out to the lungs via the pulmonary arteries to become oxygenated. The left side accepts the oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body for use. The blood pumped from the heart to the body and back is known as the systemic circulatory system. Common blood pressure monitoring is useful for gauging systemic blood circulation but will not provide information about events in the pulmonary system. Unfortunately, it is not as simple to access the pulmonary system for analysis. One important gauge of pulmonary function is Pulmonary Arterial Pressure (PAP), which is useful in diagnosing and guiding management of cardiac dysfunctions (i.e., shock, CHF), specifically providing information about left heart preload. The most common methods for acquisition are Pulmonary Arterial Catheterization (PAC), the process of threading a catheter through the heart and out into the pulmonary circulation; and echocardiography, a sonographic snapshot of heart function. Both procedures are expensive and labor intensive, and, to make matters worse, PAC insertion is a dangerous procedure shown to have high mortality rates. This leaves a gap in the market for a device that can measure PAP non-invasively in a cost- and labor-efficient fashion.
HeartSounds' Technology
HeartSounds’ icuPATCH can provide PAP non-invasively without the need for a highly paid specialist to administer (both echocardiography and PAC require a skilled physician to perform the procedure and analyze the information obtained). Studies demonstrate a correlation between the timing of heart valve closures and PAP. HeartSounds, with its proprietary algorithms, can isolate individual valvular sounds and calculate PAP in a completely non-invasive and easy-to-use fashion.
Chicago, IL
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