[Image by Nephron – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0]
Prevencio researchers and the Massachusetts General Hospital collaborated to develop a clinical and multi-protein blood test that could diagnose obstructions in coronary arteries, leading to the prevention of a heart attack.
The blood test, known as HART CAD, was tested on more than 900 subjects by James L. Januzzi, who is a practicing cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. The tests were done to detect obstructions of 70% or more in at least one major coronary artery.
The results of the test showed that the blood test was able to detect the presence of a coronary obstruction 90% of the time, which in turn was able to predict the risk of a heart attack.
“These are significant results which have the potential to establish a new standard of care and the potential to save millions of lives,” Jacuzzi, the lead author and principal investigator on the study, said in a news release. “With better diagnostic and predictive methods, we can aim to better diagnose coronary artery disease, initiate therapy and lifestyle change earlier and possibly prevent complications such as heart attacks, while simultaneously improving a patient’s quality of life.”
Coronary heart disease is the most common type of heart disease in the U.S., according to the CDC. It kills about 370,000 people a year and another 735,000 Americans experience heart attacks per year. Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. High blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking are the top risk factors for heart disease, and 47% of Americans have at least one of them.
The study also showed that Prevencio’s HART CAD test was more accurate than other tests including an electrocardiogram (ECG) or nuclear stress testing. Blood tests are also cheaper than the average $2,000 cost of a cardiac computer tomography (CT) angiogram or the average $47,000 cost of a cardiac catheterization.
The HART CAD test is being developed further to be able to test for the chances of someone suffering from a heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death within 1 year of the test.
Prevencio is working on a standardized lab test for the HART CAD blood test and is on track to conduct FDA trials in 2018. It also plans to file for European and FDA approval in 2018–2019 and could be available for medical professionals as soon as 2019.
The research was recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).
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