|
New
Technology Pinpoints Plaque in Arteries Early
by
Linda Gilchriest
Texas
Medical Center News
A
new technology that could allow physicians to see heart
attack risks at the earliest stage possible will be
introduced this month by CardioNexus Corp., a division of
Fairway Medical Technologies and in partnership with
Panasonic Healthcare.
The CardioNexus device is a cardiovascular health screening
station that uses state-of-the-art, ultrasound technology in
combination with other cardiovascular testing components to
provide a comprehensive assessment for use in primary care
offices.
Morteza Naghavi, M.D., president and CEO of Fairway Medical
Technologies in Houston, said the CardioHealth Station
testing device is important because too often, sufficient
testing is not done to measure plaque until the patient
actually has a heart attack.
"Heart disease, unlike cancer, doesn’t give you a lot of
time. When a person dies, he dies within 20-30 minutes of
the heart attack," Naghavi, a cardiologist, said. "What we
now know is that a heart attack is not a mystery. It is
plaque growing in the artery. That plaque ruptures and
creates a clot and that clot obstructs the blood flow to the
heart, so the heart cannot get enough blood and oxygen to
survive."
By identifying the plaque buildup in the artery early,
doctors will have a chance to recommend lifestyle changes
and medications that can head off heart attacks, Naghavi
said.
Fairway Medical Technologies has been involved in developing
and manufacturing medical innovations for almost 15 years.
The company, which Naghavi said is a spinoff of Baylor
College of Medicine’s commercial arm, has a number of
Federal Drug Administration-registered medical devices and
designs working today.
"We come up with ideas, we test them and we take them to the
next level and create samples. Then we take them to the FDA
for approval for patient care," Naghavi said.
"About two years ago, Panasonic decided to come into health
care with its own name," he said. "They identified
cardiovascular as their focus and found our group (Fairway
Medical Technologies) to be a good fit because we had
leadership in early detection and treatment for
cardiovascular disease."
Naghavi said Texas is the first state to pass a law to
reimburse companies who provide early detection and
treatment for people who have plaque.
"That revolutionary move is also supported by us through our
nonprofit group called The Society for Heart Attack
Prevention and Eradication, or SHAPE," Naghavi said.
Currently, most primary care physicians use blood pressure
checks and blood flow measurements to determine if further
testing for heart disease is necessary.
"Knowing your cholesterol is not sufficient. You have to do
the scan to be able to see if there is plaque," the
cardiologist said.
The CardioHealth Station will be available for primary care
physicians, as well as heart specialists. Naghavi said
ideally, he would like to see these machines in pharmacies
where blood pressure measurements have been available for
years.
The device is simple to operate, Naghavi said. The patient
is hooked up to the computer and in a matter of minutes, the
doctor or one of his staff can perform the ultrasound and
have a detailed report that notes any problem areas within
the carotid artery wall.
"This is part of a push to practice personalized preventive
medicine," Naghavi said.
The company has not yet determined what consumers will pay
for the test, but the state will assist with the cost, he
said.
Fairway
sponsors "Best
Medical Device" award winner OrthoIntrinsics, LLC at the
2010 Rice Business Plan
Competition
The
Best International Team Award for $2,500 went to fourth
place overall winner OrthoIntrinsics from London School of
Economics and Rice University. OrthoIntrinsics is developing
a patent-pending medical device, PRIME, that can directly
and accurately measure internal hand strength. Used as an
outcome measurement tool, PRIME can significantly improve
clinical practice and promote evidence based medicine. They
also won Best Medical Device and third place overall in the
elevator pitch for a total cash prize of $11,250.
More
on Rice University Business Plan Competition
here
More
on OrthoIntrinsics
here
Fairway
attends SPIE conference “Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging
and Sensing”
This year marks the 11th anniversary of a SPIE conference
“Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing” founded by
Alexander Oraevsky in 1999. This Conference is the main
forum for the community of biomedical optoacoustics, which
drives its continuous and dynamic growth. The corresponding
number of inventions, peer-reviewed publications and
conference abstracts presented by our community in the past
11 years is unmatched by any other research community of
similar size. It is significant that this year’s conference
was the biggest ever--with over 130 papers presented. The
reports presented this year can be characterized as very
mature, with deep theories and experiments performed in live
subjects or equally complex animal models.
The technologies developed by our community, optoacoustic (photoacoustic)
imaging and sensing, attracts continuously growing interest
from the medical imaging industry.
In order to recognize the leading researchers and attract
young investigators to the field, in 2005 our company
established the Best Paper Award. The following Best Papers
have been presented:
2005
- “Acoustically modulated x-ray phase contrast and vibration
potential imaging” by A.C. Beveridge, C.J. Bailat,
T.J. Hamilton, S. Wang, C. Rose-Petruck, Brown Univ.; V.E.
Gusev, Univ. du Maine; G.J. Diebold, Brown University.
2006:
Technical considerations in quantitative blood oxygenation
measurement using photoacoustic microscopy in vivo “,
by K.I. Maslov, M. Sivaramakrishnan, H. F. Zhang, G.
Stoica, L.V. Wang, Texas A&M University.
2007:
"Detection and noninvasive diagnostics of breast cancer with
two color laser optoacoustic imaging system”, by S.A.
Ermilov, A. Stein, A. Conjusteau, R.R. Gharieb, R.
Lacewell, T. Miller, S. Thompson, P. Otto, B. McCorvey, T.
Khamapirad, M. Leonard, and A.A. Oraevsky (Fairway Medical
Technologies (Houston, TX), Seno Medical Instruments (San
Antonio, Texas), University of Texas Cancer Therapy and
Research Center (San Antonio, TX) and University of Texas
Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas.
2008:
“3D photoacoustic imaging system for in vivo studies of
small animal models”, by E.Z. Zhang, J. Laufer, R. B.
Pedley, P. Beard, University College London, UK.
2009: “3D photoacoustic
imaging system for in vivo studies of small animal
models” by H-P. Brecht, , Fairway Medical
Technologies, Houston, TX and Seno Medical Instruments, San
Antonio, TX.
2009 (the second best paper)
“Combined ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging of pancreatic
cancer using nanocage contrast agents” by K. Homan,
J. Shah, S. Gomez, H. Gensler, A.B. Karpiouk, L. Brannon-Peppas,
and S.Y. Emelianov, The Univ. of Texas at Austin.
2009
(the Best Poster)“Enhanced sensitivity targeted
photoacoustic molecular imaging agents in living mice”,
A. de la Zerda, Z. Liu, C. Zavaleta, Suni Bodapati, S.
Vaithilingam, T-J. Ma, Ö. Oralkan, X. Chen, B.T. Khuri-Yakub,
H. Dai, S.S. Gambhir, Stanford University, CA.
2009
(the second Best Poster): “Monitoring wound healing in mouse
microvasculature using optical-resolution photoacoustic
microscopy, S. Hu, K.I. Maslov, L.V. Wang, Washington
University in St. Louis, MO.
This year 2010, the Best Paper Award went to the
presenting author Konstantin Maslov, and his
coauthors Geng Ku and Lihong V. Wang, Washington University
in St. Louis (United States) for the presentation entitled
“Photoacoustic microscopy with submicron resolution”. The
Best Poster Award was given to the presenting author Min
Qu and her coauthors Mohammad Mehrmohammadi,
Srivalleesha Mallidi, Pratixa Joshi, Yun-Sheng Chen,
Kimberly Homan, and Stanislav Emelianov, The Univ. of Texas
at Austin (United States) for the poster entitled “Combined
photoacoustic and magneto-motive ultrasound imaging”.
The Board of Directors and the management of Fairway Medical
Technologies would like to congratulate the winners and
thank all the contributors to this conference for making it
another great success!
Fairway Medical Technologies To
Develop Biosensor For Blood Pathogens And Warfare Threats
Fairway
Medical Technologies, Inc. has received a $900,000, 3-year
contract from the Department of the Navy to apply its
optoacoustic technology to the real-time detection of blood
borne pathogens and biological warfare agents under
battlefield conditions. This grant is part of a larger, $3
million project led by Prof. Randolph Glickman, Principal
Investigator from the University of Texas Health Science
Center (UTHSC) at San Antonio.
The grant, entitled "Rapid identification of pathogenic
agents in biological samples using pulsed laser optoacoustic
spectroscopy with targeted nanoparticle contrast agents,"
will be carried out as a collaborative project between UTHSC,
Fairway Medical Technologies and the Naval Health Research
Center Detachment Directed Energy Bioeffects Laboratory at
Brooks City-Base.
Fairway Awarded $3.8 Million Federal Funding for Phase II
Research Using Optoacoustic Technology for Early Cancer
Detection
New
federal funding totaling $3.8 million will support Phase II
research into breast and prostate cancer detection using a
laser optoacoustic imaging technology developed by Fairway
Medical Technologies.
“Prostate cancer strikes one in six men in America”
.The research funding includes authorization of two National
Cancer Institute grants:
The
optoacoustic technology will be introduced as a real-time
screening tool for breast cancer detection and diagnosis, an
estimated $5.9 billion market in North America, by Seno
Medical Instruments of San Antonio, which has purchased the
technology and entered into a long-term development
agreement with Fairway. Seno will also provide development
funding for the technology’s initial commercialization
steps.
|
