Detecting Heart Diseases Early and Non-Invasively Using Heart Sounds and new methods in Auscultation and Phonocardiography
(PRWEB) December 29, 2004 -- New Hampshires Life Sciences Magazine Movers and Shakers" features Digital Heart Stethoscope story in its December 2004 issue. The story is written by Marcia Howell Freer and is now available in the electronic format from the http://www.nhbiotech.com.
Michael S. Brown and Joseph Goldstein, Winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1985 said, if we wait for susceptible individuals to develop symptoms before deciding to treat, the earliest symptom is often death. The challenge is to develop non-invasive screening methods." That is exactly what Biosignetics Corporation of Exeter, NH is trying to achieve http://www.bsignetics.com .
With the desire to enable patients and doctors to catch heart disease early, they determined they needed to do two things: 1) have inexpensive, non-invasive and widely available diagnostic tools so that people would be able to test themselves on a regular basis, especially at the first signs of symptoms, and 2) develop technology that is sensitive enough to detect very weak signs of the impending disease. To address these issues Biosignetics has developed the Digital Stethoscope" and Heart Energy Signature" concepts designed to precisely characterize mechanical heart imperfections (heart murmurs and lesions) with the data gathered through an electronic stethoscope.
Present research promises many new possibilities and breakthroughs augmenting existing knowledge and instrumentation in the field of cardiac auscultation, heart sounds analysis, heart murmurs and computer-aided auscultation.
Several new patent applications are on the way, and the third software release was completed in December 2004. Among the other features it includes the state-of-the-art in digital noise removal technology. This technology will be utilized to improve the quality of the phonocardiograms and in teaching of the heart auscultation. Company research proposal was selected to be the semi-finalist at the US Advance Technology Program (ATP) managed by the National Institute of Standards.
ATP Program funds high risk high payoff path-breaking research from all technology areas. We were very pleased and honored to be selected as semi-finalists in such a prestigious and tough competition", said Dr. Vladimir Polyshchuk, Biosignetics President and Technical Director. We have achieved several key milestones in the field of practical digital auscultation and phonocardiography. They are all focused on early detection of asymptomatic silent heart diseases using our patent pending Heart Energy Signature Method and Format." Other companies in this emerging field include Zargis Medical (division of SPEEDUS), Inovise Inc and Sonomedica.
According to Dall'Asta, Chief Financial Officer at Siemens Corporate Research, there is a market niche of $2 billion for non-invasive sound based diagnosis devices just in the United States. We are very well positioned to compete with others and to dominate this market segment. Our accomplishments offer new and unparalleled opportunities for the electronic stethoscope manufacturers and we have started active collaborations with several companies in this field", said Vladimir Kudriavtsev, Sr. VP of Marketing and Technology. Weve overcome barrier after barrier driving toward our goal. We have very innovative, tenacious and forward thinking team", stressed Dr. V. Polyshchuk.
Biosignetics Corporation is now working on establishing global partnerships, national and international sales networks and is actively looking for the new venture capital and research funding with the objective to raise 5 million dollars in the next 6 months. Company also accepts research donations - http://www.bsignetics.com/DonatetoResearch.htm
Additional links:
http://www.nhbiotech.com/NEWSLETTER/MS1204/index.php
http://www.nhbiotech.com/NEWSLETTER/MS1204/MS1204.pdf
The American Heart Association estimates that about 12 million Americans have coronary heart diseases, generating a total cost - including health expenditures and lost productivity - of $99.8 billion annually (University of Florida Study, 1999). It is also the leading cause of death in the United States, England and many other developed countries.
It was recently reported that Elizabeth Taylor is afflicted with congestive heart failure. Heart failure is a condition where the heart cannot pump enough blood throughout the body. About 5 million people in the United States have heart failure.
The condition is the No. 1 reason for hospital admission for patients over age 65.
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