HeartBeam announces publication of Foundational Study on heart attack detection

HeartBeam announced the publication of a foundational study demonstrating the ability of its VECG platform to detect the presence of coronary artery blockages. The publication “Coronary Artery Occlusion Detection Using 3-Lead ECG System Suitable for Credit Card-Size Personal Device Integration” appeared in JACC: Advances, a journal of the American College of Cardiology. It demonstrated that HeartBeam’s VECG technology detects the presence of a coronary occlusion, the cause of heart attacks, with the same accuracy as a standard 12 lead electrocardiogram . The significance of this result is the potential to provide patients with an easy-to-use system to record a diagnostic quality ECG signal outside of a medical institution, which could improve heart attack detection, speed up access to care, and save lives. Both 12L ECG and VECG signals were recorded in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. Readings were taken before and after a 90 second balloon inflation that occluded the artery, a surrogate for a heart attack. Automated computer analysis of the ST segment of the 12L ECG and VECG was performed. In addition, a panel of three cardiologists analyzed the 12L ECGs. The study showed that the automated analysis of the VECG and 12L ECG signals had similar performance in determining whether the artery was occluded. Also in the study, the human interpretation of the 12L ECGs had significant intra- and inter-observer variability, which does not occur with automated readings.