MEDICAL DEVICE INNOVATION - Medical Device Daily

MEDICAL DEVICE INNOVATION 2010
MTI’s ArterioVision a new option
in testing for cardio illnesses
By OMAR FORD
Medical Device Daily Staff writer
Most men in Gary Thompson’s family didn’t make it to
the age of 50. Heart disease was always the culprit, so when
Thompson came up on his 50th birthday he undertook a
wide assortment of tests. All his tests came back saying he
was relatively in good shape. So six days after turning 50,
he took part in the Los Angeles Marathon, and 20 miles into
it he began having a heart attack.
Thompson survived the ordeal and went on a personal
quest to find a better way to test for the presence of cardiovascular
disease. After undergoing a new and experimental
ultrasound like test at the University of California
and having a visibly shaken clinician tell him that he had
the thickest arteries that were in a living person,
Thompson’s initial quest was over and a new mission to
bring this test to market had begun.
To do so he founded a company Medical
Technologies International (MTI; Palm Desert,
California) to bring the test, which is called ArterioVision, to
the clinical arena. Thompson is now the chairman/CEO of
the company.
ArterioVision had its roots in a test designed for NASA
to detect the presence of ice on Mars. The technology was
originally created at in 1966 to interpret images sent from
space. That software, which was invented to process pictures
from several missions, including the Voyagers and
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, forms the foundation of the
ArterioVision carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT test).
The repurposed software – is now used to measure the
thickness or the edge of arteries in the human body.
“I think this is a disruptive technology and I mean that
in a good way,” Kelly Nardoni Senior Vice President of MTI
told Medical Device Daily. “It’s standard for us to test indicators
such as cholesterol, blood pressure . . . but I think
this adds another tool for us to look at when determining
the condition of a patient’s heart. I don’t think it replaces
any of those other indicators, but rather it adds a new
dimension to testing.”
She noted that Thompson had been through nearly
every kind of test and checked out to be fine, but when he
had undergone testing through the ArterioVision test it
immediately identified the diseased state of his arteries.
“I recognized the medical value of the technology
immediately,” Thompson said. “I knew there was no other
test that could give doctors an early read on cardiovascular
health.” Thompson added that if a patient were “physically
fit, with no visible symptoms, other cardiovascular tests
may miss key risk.”
The ArterioVision CIMT test uses ultrasound technology
to measure the thickness of the first two layers of the
carotid artery wall. The FDA-cleared procedure determines
whether there has been a build-up of fats causing the wall
to thicken. Wall thickening is the earliest noninvasive indicator
of atherosclerosis – the underlying cause of heart
attack and stroke. The test provides the “age” of a patient’s
arteries based on CIMT, compared to one’s chronological
age. ArterioVision is quick and painless, and does not
expose patients to radiation.
“For instance it can tell you if you have arteries the age
of an 80-year-old,” Nardoni said. “It’s a real wake up call to
a lot of patients.”
The test has been FDA cleared and there are plans to
get clearance to market the test in Europe.
But perhaps one of the crowning achievements for the
company is the fact that they are working with NASA again.
The test is coming full circle, according to the company,
and is poised to be used by NASA Johnson Space Center
(JSC) to help clarify and monitor the cardiovascular health
of the Center’s astronauts and trainees. NASA will use
ArterioVision at JSC to monitor the cardiovascular health of
astronauts as they train for flight missions. JSC hopes to
use the ArterioVision test as a preventive medicine screening
tool for its employees, as part of an integrated wellness
exam aimed at keeping employees healthy, and thereby
reducing costs from lost work days.
(This story originally appeared in the Aug. 11, 2009, edition
of Medical Device Daily)
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