HealthManagement, Volume 16 - Issue 3, 2016

For Rapid Diagnosis of Heart Attack at the Point of Care

Chest pain patients presenting at the emergency department ‏are set to benefit from a major development by ‏Royal Philips. The company has CE marked its cardiac ‏troponin I (cTnI) blood test on the Philips Minicare I-20 handheld ‏device. Current guidelines for the diagnosis of myocardial ‏infarction (MI) require blood test results of cardiac troponin for ‏the 90% of patients who present at the ED with chest pain, but ‏are not diagnosed by an electrocardiogram (ECG). ‏For high-risk cardiac patients (such as those with Acute ‏Coronary Syndrome), fast triage and rapid initiation of treatment ‏are critical in order to improve patient outcomes and to ‏save lives.

 

Minicare cTnI delivers lab comparable test results in less than ‏10 minutes, from only a single droplet of blood. The result is ‏delivered near the patient, while they are being assessed and ‏a medical history taken, reducing the time the physician needs ‏to decide on treatment. This simplifies the patient-doctor interaction, ‏helping physicians provide the best possible care for ‏their patients.

 

Only 10% of chest pain patients can be diagnosed by ECG. ‏The rest need to rely on additional cardiac marker testing for ‏the diagnosis of MI. Physicians often have to wait up to six ‏hours before deciding if they can safely discharge the patient ‏or if they need to admit for further tests. The use of Minicare ‏cTnI supports a reduction of the diagnostic protocol by up to ‏three hours.

 

Lab2Go Study confirmation

 

The Minicare I-20 was tested in real life acute care settings ‏within the European project Lab2Go, a consortium of European ‏hospitals. The study showed the potential of the Philips Minicare ‏cTnI to accurately measure cTnI values, near the patient in the ‏emergency department, with a turn-around-time of less than ‏10 minutes.

 

Minicare I-20 is simple and easy to use by non-laboratory ‏staff. The user is guided through the process steps by the intuitive ‏interface and incorporated fail-safes. A droplet of blood ‏from a finger prick or venous whole blood tube can be applied ‏directly on the cartridge. Connectivity allows for direct transfer ‏of the data to the laboratory or hospital information systems to ‏update the patient files. The robustness and accuracy that is ‏needed for confident decision making is provided by integrated ‏calibration and fail-safe guarantees.

 

Blood samples are usually analysed in the hospital laboratory, ‏which can easily take more than an hour to get the result back to ‏the ED physician. Point of care testing can significantly help to ‏reduce the turnaround time,” said Dr. Paul Collinson, consultant ‏chemical pathologist at St George’s University Hospitals NHS ‏Foundation Trust.

 

“Minicare I-20 is designed to help care providers to reduce time ‏to treatment and reduce time to discharge of patients, thereby ‏helping to decrease crowding in the emergency department ‏and leading to better use of hospital resources,” said Marcel van ‏Kasteel, CEO of Handheld Diagnostics at Philips.

 

Performance

 

The clinical and analytical performance of Philips Minicare cTnI ‏was validated during multicentre clinical studies. Minicare cTnI ‏point of care assay showed excellent clinical performance for ‏the diagnosis of myocardial infarction comparable to central ‏laboratory assays. Minicare cTnI can be used as an aid in the ‏diagnosis of an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in a diagnostic ‏protocol, including a cTn test, when the patient presents ‏at the emergency department; and 2-4 hours later (0/3h ‏diagnostic protocol) in appropriate patients. This follows the ‏2015 European Society of Cardiology (ES C) guidelines for the ‏management of NSTE -ACS patients.

 

The Philips Minicare I-20 analyser and Minicare cTnI test cartridges are sold in ‏selected countries in Europe, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, ‏Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK and Switzerland. Please contact your ‏Philips representative for availability in your country. ‏


Philips Minicare I-20 at ESC 2016
Rome, August 27-31,  2016
Booth #E4-N100