Home test for heart attacks

DAVID SHAMAH ISRAEL21C

While crushing pain in the chest might be easy to recognize as heart trouble, other symptoms, like pain in the shoulders or arms, nausea, sweating, shortness of breath or fatigue, are not. Now an Israeli company could have the solution.

Israeli diagnostic company Novamed has developed a new home diagnostics product, SensAheart, that can detect a heart attack (myocardial infarction) while it is in progress, or even before it takes place.

Heart attacks don’t just happen – they develop over several days, according to Dr. Igal Ruvinsky, head of Novamed’s research and development department. It’s important to get treatment as soon as possible to avoid long-term damage to the heart, but many people suffer mild, or even serious, heart attacks without even realizing what is happening and, often, victims are able to continue to function through a prolonged episode even while in pain.

“Either they are unaware of the symptoms, or attribute their pain to something else. You need a quick diagnosis and quick action in these cases,” Ruvinsky said. “Our kit lets home users determine whether they need to rush to the hospital, or whether they can rule out a heart attack as the cause of their suffering.”

SensAheart can provide results with just one drop of blood.

“We test for the presence of troponin, an enzyme that is released at the onset of myocardial infarction, as well as for FABP3 [heart-type fatty acid binding protein], also released when an attack ensues,” said Ruvinsky, explaining that, during a heart attack, the blood and urine levels of FABP rise rapidly. “So, by testing for both these markers, we get a very accurate picture of the state of the heart – and whether the patient is already, or is about to, suffer an attack.”

The blood is analyzed and filtered and, a few minutes later, an indicator appears on the window of the analysis kit, telling the patient whether she or he can relax or should rush to the hospital.

“There is no other similar test that can be marketed to the home user in this way, because all of them require much more blood for analysis,” said Dr. Gavriel Shalmiev, Novamed’s vice-president and marketing manager.

Novamed, which was established in 1995, has the numbers to prove its effectiveness. In one study, conducted at Wolfson Medical Centre in Holon, the test gave accurate results for 94 percent of participants, thereby catching the problem in its initial stages.

SensAheart has been available for purchase since the beginning of the year, and Novamed has already sold thousands of units in Russia and China, where the company chose to market first. Most of the sales have been to institutions, but the company plans to market to home users soon, as well as other countries. √

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