>>SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--May 13, 2002-- CardioDynamics (Nasdaq:CDIC - News), the innovator and global leader of Impedance Cardiography (ICG) technology and manufacturer of BioZ® noninvasive digital cardiac function monitoring systems, today announced the presentation of a significant clinical study at the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE) 23rd Annual Scientific Sessions held May 9-11, 2002 in San Diego.
The Study's results, presented by researchers from the Iowa Heart Center, demonstrated positive, and in some cases dramatic, improvements when utilizing CardioDynamics' ICG technology in optimizing pacemaker settings in congestive heart failure patients.
America College of Cardiology Pacing Guidelines state that dual chamber pacing for heart failure may be considered in patients where acute (short-term) testing has shown benefit. This Study examined the potential benefit of acute pacemaker optimization during temporary heart chamber pacing and demonstrated ICG technology to be a highly effective, efficient, non-invasive tool for this unmet need. According to the study, 88 percent of the pacemaker patients demonstrated benefits of improved blood flow, with a mean increase in ICG-determined cardiac output of 54 percent.
Commenting on the Study, lead investigator, W. Ben Johnson, M.D., medical director of Arrhythmia Services at Iowa Heart Center, stated, "Reliable, noninvasive tools requiring minimal time and resources are greatly needed. This Study demonstrates the value of BioZ's measurements to document improvement in heart function for pacemaker patients. ICG technology allowed us to identify 'the best' setting for the pacemaker. It appears that ICG may be more useful than the commonly used echocardiographic measurements."
This Study used a temporary dual chamber pacemaker on patients. If improvement was seen with BioZ-optimized settings, then the patients received a permanent dual chamber pacemaker. The Study results confirmed excellent ICG correlation to echocardiographic optimization settings. Advantages of ICG over echocardiography are its ease of use, time efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. ICG has the potential to optimize care for the two million patients with implanted pacemakers. Additionally, there are approximately 500,000 newly implanted devices each year that could benefit from ICG optimization.
Michael K. Perry, chief executive officer of CDIC, added, "We are very pleased with the consistent validation of the impact of our technology in the treatment of heart failure. The medical community is continually identifying important clinical applications for our technology and currently, there are over 20 clinical application studies in progress. The message from the medical and research communities is clear -- there is a need for noninvasive and cost-effective access to heart data and, with each study, our proprietary technology has shown to fulfill this need."
In recently-released, related news, the company announced an agreement with Medtronic to evaluate the clinical utility of CardioDynamics' proprietary ICG technology in optimizing the programming of Medtronic's implantable devices for Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) in heart failure patients, and the potential integration of the BioZ ICG Module with Medtronic instrumentation. The companies have agreed to share ownership of unique intellectual property developed during the term of the agreement through the collaboration for biventricular pacing applications.<<
Apparently prompting Roth Capital to reiterate a buy rating.
Cheers, Tuck |
