Indian Institute technology Madras (IIT Madras) researchers have developed a new, non-invasive tool to assess the health and age of blood vessels and thereby provide early screening for heart diseases.
Artense is designed in such a way that it can be used by non-specialists to assess and predict vascular health in routine medical examinations. It is powered by a proprietary non-imaging probe and an intelligent computing platform and developed by the Healthcare Technology Innovation Center (HTIC) at IIT Madras.
The device has been evaluated on over 5,000 human subjects. The technology already holds five utility patents, 10 design patents in the US, EU and India, and has 28 patents pending to be granted in various jurisdictions.
The product is ready for technology transfer and commercialization after extensive testing. The IIT Madras team intends to deploy it to perform over one lakh vascular screenings per year.
The technology and field results of this instrument have already been published in more than 100 scientific peer-reviewed publications. The latest research papers were published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Hypertension and the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
The research was led by Dr. Jayaraj Joseph, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras. The paper in Journal of Hypertension is co-authored by Dr. PM Nabeel, Lead Research Scientist, HTIC-IIT Madras, Mr. V. Raj Kiran, PhD Scholar, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras and Dr. Jairaj Joseph.
Dr Jayaraj Joseph, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras said, “Reliable assessment of vascular health requires measurements directly on the blood vessel walls and not on the skin surface. Our Atense device can assess the impact of molecular and protein level changes in the vessel wall due to disease and aging by measuring physical property in a completely non-invasive and precise manner.
Dr. Jairaj Joseph added, “ArtSense makes vascular aging assessment accessible to a large population in clinical and non-clinical settings such as gyms and health centers, etc.”
Artense has been approved for clinical studies in India, the US and Europe. An extensive clinical study is underway at AIIMS New Delhi. Scientists at Radboud University Medical Centre, The Netherlands are using this tool to investigate the relationship between arterial age, physiological (activity) and cardiovascular events, and researchers at AIIMS New Delhi to study the physiological basis of arterial ageing. Using it to do and understand. in various disease states.
Pro. Dick Thijssen, Radboud UMC, The Netherlands, who also collaborated on this project, said, “We have used the latest Artense device in our recent clinical studies on over 600 subjects. The easy-to-use, portable devices allow large-scale research studies to truly understand vascular aging. Ultimately, easy-to-use tools that assess vascular health have the potential to improve clinical practice and lead to wider dissemination.
“Portable and easy-to-use devices like Artense, when developed and validated indigenously, provide a significant cost advantage and can be a game changer in large scale screening and by any stakeholder interested in primary prevention strategies It can be used” Dr. Mohanshankar Sivaprakasam, Faculty In-Charge, HTIC, IIT Madras
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first hand-held, easy-to-use, minimally operator-dependent, and cost-effective device that is well suited for routine clinical practice and large-scale screening,” said the scientists. Dr. PM Nabeel, V. Raj Kiran and Dr. Jairaj Joseph – write in their recent paper in the Journal of Hypertension.
Dr. Dinu S Chandran, Department of Physiology, AIIMS New Delhi said, “The ability of Artense to assess both local and arterial stiffness along with central blood pressure in a single test makes it extremely useful in assessing vascular health status Early marker in many disease conditions.
Artens simultaneously checks arterial stiffness and central blood pressure. The device consists of a pressure cuff affixed to the upper arm and thigh and a probe applied to the surface of the neck to locate the carotid artery. It measures carotid artery stiffness, aortic pulse wave velocity, and central blood pressure, all three important markers of cardiovascular health.
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