Aural ECG Device Diagnoses Heart Sounds

A non-invasive, radiation-free acoustic electrocardiogram (ECG) device helps physicians detects both physiological and pathological heart murmurs.

The AUM Cardiovascular (Northfield, MN, USA) CADence device is a portable tool to diagnose valvular heart disease, congestive heart failure (CHF), and obstructive coronary artery disease; it can also be used to assess and track native, transcatheter, bioprosthetic, and mechanical heart valve function remotely. The device requires minimal training for operation and records audio turbulence signals from within the coronary arteries at four thorax wall locations. The turbulence is identified using a proprietary algorithm built into the device.

Data is then uploaded via Bluetooth to a tablet and analyzed by proprietary analytics engine. The results are available on the tablet itself and are also sent to a centralized email address for immediate report generation, long-term assessment, and record keeping, either in the electronic health record (HER) or printed for the patient chart. Audio data files can also be listened to directly on the tablet using earbuds. Testing can be conducted in less than 20 minutes, with diagnostic results available in minutes, thus avoiding long waits or lengthy testing protocols and possible follow-up appointments.

“If a patient does not have significant obstructive coronary artery disease, the CADence System will be able to confirm this approximately 9 out of 10 times,” said Marie Johnson, CEO of AUM Cardiovascular. “This efficient, noninvasive and reusable device has a lower safety risk profile than other diagnostic screening tests such as such as nuclear stress testing, computed tomography, and angiography.”

“The CADence system has the potential to dramatically enhance our ability to rule-out significant coronary artery disease and efficiently triage patients needing additional testing,” said interventional cardiologist Jay Thomas, MD, of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA, USA). “It is a rapid, cost-effective, radiation-free way to evaluate selected patients with chest pain. The need for something like CADence is quite obvious, considering how we have managed chest pain testing for the last twenty years.”

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