Panasonic has unveiled its new CardioHealth Station, a tool for personalized preventive medicine, at the 2010 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
Panasonic’s flagship healthcare product, the CardioHealth Station is designed to assist medical professionals in making a quick and valuable assessment of cardiovascular health and is expected to launch in North America pending href="/directory/food-and-drug-administration-fda" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">href="/directory/food-and-drug-administration-fda" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">FDA action.
The CardioHealth Station has a built-in portable ultrasound system optimized to perform a non-invasive examination of the carotid arteries. It provides an automated real-time measurement of the intima-media thickness (IMT) and allows the user to search for arterial plaques. Moreover, the touch-screen keyboard allows the user to input various parameters related to traditional cardiovascular risk factors.
A built-in calculator provides risk scores commonly used in a variety of medical environments (Framingham Risk Score, PROCAM Health Check Score, Reynolds Risk Score, Risk score based on the SCORE Project). This information is supplemented with an IMT measurement of the artery to generate a comprehensive report to aid the physician in assessing cardiovascular risk.
Recently published studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health have shown that there is valuable information revealed in the assessment of vascular health, and the risks of a cardiovascular event associated with those assessments. The ARIC study, a 15-year multi-institution study, revealed that certain patients can be reclassified from “Low or Intermediate Risk” to “High Risk” by looking at the carotid-intima media thickness and the presence of plaque in the patient.
Panasonic developed CardioHealth Station to enable rapid detection of thick carotid arteries. The carotid artery is the blood vessel branch that goes from the heart up the neck, and provides blood to the front of the face and the brain. What once used to be difficult and impractical to do on a mass basis is now made possible by the innovative automation technology loaded as standard in the CardioHealth Station.
“Panasonic plans to take a leadership role in the field of Personalized Preventive Medicine,” said Joseph M. Taylor, chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corporation of North America. “The CardioHealth Station is an innovative example of how Panasonic is planning to work closely with the medical community to provide the tools to assist the practitioner in achieving the goal of lowering healthcare costs through the early detection of disease.”
On Oct. 25, Panasonic announced the formation of CardioNexus Corporation, which became the launching platform for CardioHealth Station in North America. Panasonic is currently applying for FDA approval of the CardioHealth Station, and expects sales to begin as soon as approval is received from the regulatory authorities.
“Helping the world reduce global healthcare costs is in everybody’s interest,” said Osamu Takahashi, director of global strategy at Panasonic Healthcare. “Panasonic believes the CardioHealth Station, a first in a series of products – will help achieve the corporate goal of improving society through the early detection of disease.”
