Background

Heart failure affects over 64 million people worldwide. Patients with heart failure caused by stiffening of the heart muscle (diastolic heart failure), which is about 50% of all heart failure patients, lack good diagnostic methods. To make a definitive heart failure diagnosis in these patients, one must measure pressure inside the left ventricle (LV) which is rarely done due to the associated risk of complications and the high cost. Instead, current clinical practice is guided by a number of indirect echocardiographic indices and blood markers such as the natriuretic peptide NT pro-BNP.

Techonology Overview

A quick echocardiographic scan captures key cardiac physiological metrics that are interpreted through a combination of statistical and mechanistic models to unveil filling pressure in the left ventricle of the heart (Figure 1).

Further Detail

Smiseth O. et al, (2023), Eur. Heart J. Cardiovasc. Imaging 24(10), 1329–1342

Stage Of Development

TRL 4 with ongoing trial evaluating TRL5

Benefit

• Cheap (40 times cheaper only accounting for direct costs, comparison of an ultrasound scan of ~£200 vs. a catheterised procedure of ~£8000) and non-invasive alternative to existing methods to assess filling pressure.
• Huge potential market beyond the risks of current catheterised technique, across a wide range of clinical applications, to name a few: diagnose heart failure, improve timing of heart valve surgeries, or differentiate aetiology of pulmonary hypertension.

Applications

Post-processing technique that can be adapted to any echocardiographic vendor. Possibility to apply to other modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging.

Oppurtunity

The proposed technology has been protected with a patent application (PCT application n. PCT/EP2022/079293) and is available for licensing. Suitable partners are sought to embed the algorithm within a commercial software framework. A development partner could take an option to a license over the patent, software and associated know-how.