Cambridge Heart, Inc. (OTCBB: CAMH), a developer of non-invasive diagnostic tests for cardiac disease, today announced that the prognostic value of its Microvolt T-Wave Alternans (MTWA) test was recently featured in Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology (DAIC) as the Case of the Week.
The clinical case illustrates the value of the test in a patient with chronic hypertension and dilated cardiomyopathy with moderately reduced left ventricular function. The patient tested positive for MTWA and eventually received an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) for primary prevention of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Eighteen months after implantation, the patient experienced SCA while at his home and was successfully resuscitated by a shock from the device.
"MTWA helped identify the patient's latent arrhythmic risk and was the trigger for further evaluation which ultimately led to life-saving therapy," noted Ralph Nader, M.D., interventional cardiologist at the Miami Center for Advanced Cardiology in Miami Beach, Florida, and the author of the case study. "Since the majority of sudden cardiac arrests occur in patients without severe left ventricular dysfunction, it is important to have a tool that can distinguish this risk."
The case study can be found on the DAIC website at:
http://www.dicardiology.com/article/case-study-mtwa-identifies-latent-arrhythmic-risk-hypertensive-cardiomyopathy
"This case is another important example of how MTWA can play a key role in managing patients with heart disease," said Ali Haghighi-Mood, CEO of Cambridge Heart. "By providing a unique piece of clinical information about a patient's risk for life-threatening heart rhythms, MTWA helps make prediction and prevention of sudden cardiac arrest a reality."
Diagnostic & Interventional Cardiology is the widest-reaching provider of new product information, technology trends, application strategies and related connectivity solutions in the diagnostic and interventional cardiology markets.
Cambridge Heart addresses a key problem in cardiac diagnosis -- the identification of those at risk of sudden cardiac death. Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) accounts for approximately one fourth of all cardiac deaths, or approximately 300,000 deaths, in the United States each year -- more than lung cancer, breast cancer and HIV/AIDS combined. Out-of-hospital survival is less than 8 percent, making prediction and prevention critically important. It is estimated that there are approximately 10 to 12 million heart attack and heart failure patients in the U.S. who can benefit from annual Microvolt T-Wave Alternans (MTWA) testing. MTWA is a marker of SCA risk which is measured during a non-invasive treadmill test using Cambridge Heart's proprietary technologies. The Company's MTWA test is the only one of its kind that is reimbursed by Medicare under a National Coverage Policy.
Source: YellowBrix
