Royal Philips has completed its first field study for its Minicare handheld cardiac Troponin-I (cTn-I) blood test, demonstrating the platform’s potential to produce lab-equivalent results with finger prick samples within minutes. The Minicare cTn-I system is designed to help physicians, nurses and paramedics identify patients at high risk for acute cardiac events– right at the bedside or in pre-hospital settings. The initial results are encouraging as Philips prepares for the Minicare cTn-I system’s clinical trial, scheduled for 2015.

The field study was executed at the Catharina Hospital, a leading cardiology center in the Netherlands. The Philips prototype blood test, performed at the patient’s bedside using a finger prick blood sample, was run in parallel to the standard laboratory cTn-I blood test. The field study demonstrated promising correlation between the finger prick test and the results of the whole blood sample from a venous draw. Moreover, the study indicated that these results can be obtained near the patient in the hands of the care giver.

Only about 15 percent of patients presenting in emergency departments with chest pain suffer from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) – commonly known as heart attack. At the same time, early diagnosis and treatment are critical to improving outcomes around acute cardiac events, and today’s standard lab tests, logistics and reporting can take up to 90 minutes to enable decision-making. With a quick finger prick cTn-I blood test, Philips Minicare is being designed to measure AMI indicators almost immediately, wherever the patient is located. This has the potential to enable doctors to identify high-risk patients earlier, reducing the time from diagnosis to treatment or quickly discharging patients not requiring emergency care.

With heart disease still the leading cause of death and accounting for nearly $500 billion of healthcare spend worldwide, providers are under more pressure than ever to better serve that patient population. Near-patient diagnostics like Minicare have the potential to revolutionize the way clinicians diagnose disease and determine intervention.

Philips Handheld Diagnostics is an entrepreneurial team determined to bring a leading change in integrated patient care. Together with key strategic partners, Philips is developing dedicated assays to create a suite of specific blood tests that could ultimately provide doctors with accurate blood test information near the patient to support real-time decision-making.

“Minicare is just one example of how we’re solving complex problems with technologies that directly benefit not only healthcare providers, but patients and their families,” said Marcel van Kasteel, General Manager of Philips Handheld Diagnostics. “The healthcare industry is ready to do things differently, and we will remain focused on pursuing innovations that challenge the status quo.”