ECG Monitor Effectively Detects Paroxysmal Arrhythmia

A remote arrhythmia-monitoring device captures and transmits a full-disclosure electrocardiogram (ECG) signal for up to 30 days.

The Medicalgorithmics (Warsaw, Poland) PocketECG device is designed to detect complex arrhythmias, including ventricular tachycardia (VT), supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), Bigeminies and Trigeminies, as well as atrial fibrillation (AF) with single beat accuracy. PocketECG also includes a built-in accelerometer that records heart rate during physical activity and at rest, allowing clinicians to establish a baseline resting rate and differentiate between rate changes due to physical activity and those resulting from an arrhythmia event.

Patient symptoms are recorded on the touch screen of the device, and are also statistically summarized into a holter-style report delivered to a secure online portal that provides complete full-color statistical and graphical presentation of the arrhythmia, physical activity, and symptoms in a diagnostic report. The report is available for online real-time viewing, together with the ECG signal and comprehensive reports on desktop, tablet, or mobile.

If a signal is not detected for a prolonged period of time, the company will contact the patient to instruct him or her on how to properly reconnect the device. A study presented at the Heart Rhythm Society Annual Scientific Sessions, held during May 2018 in Boston (MA, USA), which analyzed 16,595 cardiac telemetry reports using the PocketECG online monitoring system, showed that the diagnostic yield of the system was significantly higher than that of fixed 24 and 48-hour holter and multi-day patch methods.

“Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation is an arrhythmia that is often difficult to detect because of its episodic nature, but presents real health risks to patients,” said Marek Dzuibinski, PhD, lead author of the study and inventor of the PocketECG. “This large-scale study demonstrated that the ability to shorten or extend monitoring duration based on the ongoing results transmitted by online ECG monitoring can improve diagnostic yield over fixed offline methods.”

Paroxysmal AF is a form of arrhythmia that is often difficult to diagnosis because of its intermittent nature. It can lead to heart-related complications including blood clots, stroke, and heart failure. Left untreated, AF more broadly can double the risk of heart-related death and increase the risk of stroke by as much as five times.

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