CardioTrace monitors cardiovascular health by measuring arterial blood flow

12 June 2010

Kent-based Advanced Global Health has launched CardioTrace, a non-invasive device that monitors the blood flow in arteries to identify fitness levels and abnormalities, allowing users to discover in real time whether their lifestyle, diet and exercise routines need to change.

CardioTrace is clipped on to a patient’s finger and connected to a computer by a USB connector. The device then measures the speed of the blood travelling through the larger arteries for 90 seconds, calculating the Arterial Stiffness Index, before comparing the reading against normal data for the patient's age and ethnicity.

The CardioTrace deviceMeasuring a person’s pulse speed not only determines their personal health levels but also identifies if they are potentially at risk with a likelihood of developing diseases such as diabetes or high blood pressure in the future.

The device also offers the possibility for mass screening of populations at an incredibly low cost, and with medically accepted accuracy and correlation. Arterial stiffness continues to be associated with an increasing number of health risks and is increasingly used alongside common health markers, strengthening the value of screening in the community.

David Fisher, Managing Director of Advanced Global Health, said: “Early identification of abnormal cardiovascular readings which can lead to life-threatening conditions, particularly when a person is already showing tendencies towards obesity, for example, is crucial and is a key objective of world health organisation's across the globe. Now, with the introduction of CardioTrace, cardiovascular screening has been made even easier and in just 30 seconds millions of people’s lives can be transformed when adopting a proactive approach.”

The revolutionary technology has been developed as a result of complex research and product development carried out in a number of countries including the UK, Germany, China and Eastern Europe and is already attracting widespread acclaim, with many hundreds of peer reviewed and published study and research papers.

In the UK, arterial stiffness is currently one of a number of health markers being identified within the UK BioBank programme — a nationwide health screening initiative provided by the NHS in conjunction with charitable donations and private sponsorship — to follow the health of 500,000 people across the UK — tracking their medical records for a period of 30 years to help to improve the health of future generations. With genetic analysis and exploring links between illnesses, including arterial stiffness, baseline readings are almost complete and data evaluation in full flow.

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