Next generation cardiac point-of-care testing

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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.