Movers and Shakers Feature New Digital Stethoscope for the Heart Disease
Detecting Heart Diseases Early and Non-Invasively Using Heart Sounds and new methods in Auscultation and Phonocardiography
(PRWEB) December 29, 2004 -- New Hampshire’s 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.
“We’ve 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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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/12/prweb192535.htm