Next generation cardiac point-of-care testing

在英国，冠心病是主要的死亡原因之一。每天有超过2500名患者出现在英国各地的急诊室，胸痛，这是疑似心脏病发作的迹象。在这些人中，只有20%的人会确诊为心脏病发作。在到达急诊室后，诊断通常需要几个小时，而医疗专业人员则在等待医院实验室处理测试结果。更快地识别这些患者将挽救生命，而及时出院其余80%没有心脏病发作的患者，将最大限度地减少不必要的入院和NHS的成本。在心脏病发作期间，一种名为肌钙蛋白(TN)的蛋白质从受损的心肌中释放到血液中。测量这种蛋白质有助于医生确定患者是否患有心脏病。TN检测结合心电图是排除胸痛患者心脏病发作的金标准。要最终排除心脏病发作，Tn水平必须非常低，并且需要非常高敏感性的肌钙蛋白(HsTn)测试。目前，hsTn检测在中心医院实验室进行，可能需要几个小时才能返回。对英国领先心脏病专家的采访证实，他们非常希望进行一种简单易用的护理点hsTn测试，以快速排除心脏病发作，并释放宝贵的床位和有限的资源。临床点检测是一种简单、廉价和易于使用的血液检测设备，可以在患者附近使用，消除了将血液样本送到医院实验室的需要。精神科医生正在开发一种改变游戏规则的临床点技术，能够测量临床医生所需的极低的TN水平，以尽快做出关键的规则确定/排除决定。我们的创新系统旨在检测手指一滴血中的超低TN水平，在10分钟内提供准确和可操作的结果。更快和准确的患者选择会带来更好的健康结果。随着结果的改善，患者在医院停留的天数更少，生活质量也更好，最终减轻了不堪重负的医疗(NHS)和社会护理系统的经济负担。

Coronary heart disease is one of the leading causes of death within the UK. Every day over 2500 patients present at A&E departments across the UK with chest pain, indicative of a suspected heart attack. Of these, only 20% will have a confirmed heart attack. Diagnosis often takes several hours after arriving at A&E while healthcare professionals wait for test results to be processed by the hospital laboratory.Faster identification of these patients will save lives, whilst timely discharge of the remaining 80%, who are not suffering a heart attack, will minimise unnecessary admissions and costs to the NHS.During a heart attack a protein called troponin (Tn) is released into the bloodstream from the damaged heart muscle. Measuring this protein helps doctors determine if a patient is suffering from a heart attack.Tn testing in combination with electrocardiogram (ECG) is the gold standard to rule in/out heart attack for patients with chest pain. To conclusively rule out heart attack the Tn levels must be extremely low and requires a very high sensitivity troponin (hsTn) test. Currently hsTn testing is carried out in the central hospital lab and can take hours to be returned. Interviews with leading UK cardiologists confirmed a very strong desire for a simple to use, point-of-care hsTn test to rapidly rule-out heart attack and free-up valuable beds and limited resource. Point-of-care tests are simple, cheap and easy to use blood testing devices that can be used near the patient, eliminating the need to send blood samples to the hospital lab.Psyros are developing a game-changing point-of-care technology able to measure the extremely low levels of Tn required by the clinicians to make the critical rule in/rule out decision as quickly as possible. Our innovative system is designed to detect ultra-low Tn levels from a drop of blood taken from the finger, giving accurate and actionable results within 10 mins.Faster and accurate patient selection leads to better health outcomes. With improved outcomes, patients spend fewer days in hospital and have a better quality of life, ultimately reducing the economic burden on overstretched health (NHS) and social care systems.