Development of a successful novel technology for sudden cardiac death risk stratification for clinical use - LifeMap

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Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) is responsible for over 3 million deaths worldwide annually, 100,000 deaths in the UK alone. People die because their heart suddenly develops a lethal heart rhythm that stops it from coordinating and working as a pump. An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is a small, £10,000 device, similar to a pacemaker that is placed under the skin, around the shoulder in a small operation. The ICD then sits quietly monitoring the heart; it can detect a lethal heart rhythm in seconds and treat it to restore normal function sometimes without the patient even being aware that their life has been saved. Unfortunately, we lack an effective means to work out who really needs an ICD. Current guidelines are based on crude clinical information and only 40% of ICD recipients deemed "high-risk" by these guidelines ever make use of them during the first 5 years of follow up. On the other hand, the majority of people who die of SCD may have a risk factor, such as a previous myocardial infarction (heart attack) but the guidelines regard them as "low-risk". For these patients there is currently no way of working out who truly is at low risk and who really needs an ICD to protect them. We have developed two novel ECG markers based on patented algorithms with supportive clinical scientific evidence in different patient populations. This innovative test is called LifeMap and has been shown to be highly effective for risk assessment of sudden cardiac death. LifeMap analyses the ECG over a spectrum of heart rates and can be performed either in a 10 minute minimally invasive procedure or with exercise. This proposal aims to translate the currently laborious research technique into an effective clinical tool by automating the software, creating a user interface and making it straightforward to acquire clean exercise ECG signals. This grant would bring LifeMap to the next phase of development; ready for a large scale clinical trial following which it could be implemented into daily practice.