MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Preventice Solutions announced today it received a tender from the UK Biobank to provide the BodyGuardian® MINI remote cardiac monitor for a cardiovascular monitoring study involving up to 30,000 participants. The study is designed to capture data on asymptomatic heart rhythm disturbances (arrhythmia), including atrial fibrillation (AF), a common arrhythmia that can lead to stroke and cognitive decline (dementia).
Not only will the study capture real-life heart rhythm information, but it is being undertaken on UK Biobank volunteers who have undergone heart and brain MRI as part of the biggest imaging study ever done.
The study has been funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and is led by Professor Barbara Casadei, who is BHF Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, at the Cardiovascular Medicine Division of the Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.
Professor Casadei said: “Atrial fibrillation is a common condition that can go unnoticed until it causes a stroke or cognitive decline. We desperately need to know more about its causes and how it can be better treated.”
“UK Biobank provides us with an ideal opportunity to integrate a large amount of health, genetics and lifestyle information with heart rhythm data on a huge number of people. Importantly these individuals will have also undergone an MRI heart, body and brain scan. It is not often that all these opportunities for discovery come together – because of this, we believe this study will provide important answers about the management and risk associated with asymptomatic AF and other clinically silent arrhythmias.”
Preventice Solutions Chief Executive Officer Jon Otterstatter, said: “The BodyGuardian® MINI was designed to enhance compliance through ease-of-use and comfort based on its small size and waterproof design allowing participants to go about their daily activities without interruption. We look forward to helping researchers pursue this important research and are pleased to partner with the UK Biobank, British Heart Foundation and the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at Oxford as they collaborate on important research efforts to further understand AF and its impact on stroke and cognitive decline.”
This study is part of the UK Biobank Imaging Project, which is almost halfway to its goal of collecting detailed brain, heart and body scans of 100,000 of its volunteer participants. The BodyGuardian® MINI remote cardiac monitor will be used to obtain longer term heart rhythm data on a subset of participants 65 years of age and older. The project is anticipated to last around three years.
The BodyGuardian® MINI is the smallest, reusable Holter monitor available. It records important physiological data such as heart rate, ECG and related activity, allowing physicians to monitor vital signs outside the clinical setting. Unlike many other remote monitors, the MINI device offers a wearable patch that can be moved and reapplied to optimize comfort and wearability, without jeopardizing data collection or requiring the participant to return to the clinic. In addition, it is fully waterproof, allowing participants the freedom to go about their daily life without interrupting cardiac monitoring.
UK Biobank is a major national and international health resource, and a registered charity in its own right, with the aim of improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses – including cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, eye disorders, depression and forms of dementia. UK Biobank recruited 500,000 people aged between 40-69 years in 2006-2010 from across the country to take part in this project. They have undergone measures, provided blood, urine and saliva samples for future analysis, detailed information about themselves and agreed to have their health followed. Over many years this will build into a powerful resource to help scientists discover why some people develop particular diseases and others do not.
The British Heart Foundation funds over £100 million of research each year into all heart and circulatory diseases and the things that cause them. Their vision is a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases. The Foundation raises money to research cures and treatments to beat heartbreak forever.
The Radcliffe Department of Medicine at Oxford was formed in 2012 and is a multi-disciplinary department with research interests that span the translational spectrum – from basic biology through to clinical application. The department’s ultimate aim is patient benefit, through improved understanding, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
About Preventice Solutions
Preventice Solutions is a leading developer of mobile health solutions and remote monitoring services that connect patients threatened by cardiac arrhythmias with their care team. Using insights to create revolutionary monitoring technologies, this tech-enabled, service-based approach can ultimately reduce the cost of care and improve health outcomes. The Preventice wearable portfolio includes the PatientCare Platform and BodyGuardian® family of monitors. For more information please visit www.preventicesolutions.com
SOURCE Preventice Solutions
