Func­tions and dia­gno­stic opti­ons — iden­ti­fy risks, detect diseases

Fea­tures and dia­gno­stic options

Iden­ti­fy risks, detect diseases

Rea­ding’ the pul­se wave comes with a huge bene­fit: It con­ta­ins a wealth of valuable infor­ma­ti­on that gua­ran­tees a signi­fi­cant advan­ce in know­ledge com­pared to stan­dard dia­gno­stics con­cer­ning the pre­ven­ti­on, dia­gno­sis, and tre­at­ment of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses. Used on time and regu­lar­ly as a fol­low-up, VASCASSIST, with the help of the glo­bal­ly uni­que, indus­try-lea­ding pre­cise Model-based Pul­se Wave Ana­ly­sis (mbPWA), helps to effec­tively pro­tect the heart and arte­ries as a dif­fe­ren­ti­al dia­gno­stic all-round tool with its varie­ty of meaningful mea­su­re­ment data.

The dia­gno­stic prin­ci­ple reli­es on oscil­lo­me­tric blood pres­su­re mea­su­re­ment employ­ing cuffs pla­ced on the upper arms, wrists, and ankles. Both peri­phe­ral and aor­tic values are deter­mi­ned. The algo­rithm-based mea­su­re­ment method of Model-based Pul­se Wave Ana­ly­sis (mbPWA) opens up a wide ran­ge of dia­gno­stic opti­ons — inclu­ding, in par­ti­cu­lar, the detec­tion of rare car­dio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses. In addi­ti­on, tho­se dise­a­ses can be loca­li­zed and dia­gno­sed much ear­lier than pos­si­ble with con­ven­tio­nal methods.

THE FEATURES

Oscil­lo­me­tric blood pres­su­re mea­su­re­ment — peri­phe­ral and central

VASCASSIST per­forms oscil­lo­me­tric blood pres­su­re mea­su­re­ments: Deter­mi­ning peri­phe­ral blood pres­su­re requi­res the appli­ca­ti­on of four cuffs, two each on the upper arms and ankles. Four cuffs are also appli­ed to mea­su­re aor­tic blood pres­su­re, two on each upper arm and both wrists.

Mea­su­re­ment of heart rate varia­bi­li­ty (HRV)

VASCASSIST deter­mi­nes heart rate varia­bi­li­ty (HRV): This para­me­ter refers to the tem­po­ral varia­ti­ons bet­ween indi­vi­du­al heart­beats, as the heart­beat con­stant­ly chan­ges. HRV is con­side­red a reco­gni­zed non-inva­si­ve mar­ker of the auto­no­mic ner­vous sys­tem and is influen­ced by seve­ral phy­sio­lo­gi­cal phe­no­me­na such as phy­si­cal activity/recovery, stress respon­ses, rela­xa­ti­on, inha­la­ti­on and exha­la­ti­on, as well as respi­ra­to­ry con­trol, hor­mo­n­al respon­ses, etc.

Mea­su­re­ment of Pul­se Wave Velo­ci­ty (PWV)

VASCASSIST mea­su­res pul­se wave velo­ci­ty (PWV): this para­me­ter repres­ents a signi­fi­cant para­me­ter of arte­ri­al vas­cu­lar stiff­ness and is an addi­tio­nal indi­ca­tor of arte­ri­al vas­cu­lar stenosis.

Deter­mi­na­ti­on of the ank­le-bra­chi­al index (ABI)

VASCASSIST cal­cu­la­tes ful­ly auto­ma­ti­cal­ly the ank­le-bra­chi­al index (ABI) requi­red in many medi­cal gui­de­lines, which is a spe­ci­fic indi­ca­tor of peri­phe­ral arte­ri­al occlu­si­ve dise­a­se (PAD), also known as clau­di­ca­tio intermittens. 

Pul­se rate measurement

VASCASSIST tracks the pul­se rate.

Pul­se Cur­ve Visualization

VASCASSIST’s cor­re­spon­ding soft­ware pro­gram, VASCVIEWER, pro­vi­des a dia­gno­sis-sup­port­ing visua­liza­ti­on of the mea­su­red pul­se pres­su­re curves.

DIAGNOSTIC OPTIONS

Right/left side comparison

VASCASSIST enables right/left side com­pa­ri­son during blood pres­su­re mea­su­re­ment: Accor­ding to the Euro­pean Socie­ty of Hyper­ten­si­on and the Euro­pean Socie­ty of Car­dio­lo­gy gui­de­lines, one should always deter­mi­ne blood pres­su­re on both arms: This allows ear­ly detec­tion of vas­cu­lar dise­a­se. Even a dif­fe­rence of 10 mmHg increa­ses the risk of peri­phe­ral vas­cu­lar dise­a­se by 140%!

Car­diac prel­oad and afterload

VASCASSIST cal­cu­la­tes car­diac func­tion by simu­la­ting the end-dia­sto­lic volu­me and dia­sto­lic pres­su­re in the aorta.

Opti­mi­zing Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Dia­ly­sis The­ra­py via Preload/Afterload

VASCASSIST increa­ses the qua­li­ty of life and life expec­tancy of dia­ly­sis pati­ents. By detec­ting the heart’s prel­oad and after­load, the device enables detail­ed moni­to­ring of left ven­tri­cu­lar pla­teau time (LVPT) to pre­vent left ven­tri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy (LVH), a com­mon con­di­ti­on asso­cia­ted with coro­na­ry artery dise­a­se. Ulti­m­ate­ly, it can lead to heart attack, heart fail­ure, or sud­den car­diac death.

Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Age

VASCASSIST allows for con­cise state­ments con­cer­ning the con­di­ti­on of the heart and the arte­ries — inclu­ding the deter­mi­na­ti­on of car­dio­vas­cu­lar age, which is also easy for pati­ents to under­stand. Vas­cu­lar age often devia­tes signi­fi­cant­ly from the actu­al age.

Com­pre­hen­si­ve Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Diagnostics

Cen­tral mea­su­re­ment: By way of cen­tral mea­su­re­ment, VASCASSIST deter­mi­nes aor­tic blood pres­su­re, which, in con­trast to blood pres­su­re mea­su­red purely peri­phe­ral­ly (upper arms), is con­side­red a more accu­ra­te indi­ca­tor of indi­vi­du­al car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk. 

Dia­gno­sis of peri­phe­ral arte­ri­al dise­a­se (PAD)

Peri­phe­ral mea­su­re­mentVASCASSIST deter­mi­nes dif­fe­rent degrees in the seve­ri­ty of vas­cu­lar steno­sis in the lower and upper extre­mi­ties. The device often detects vas­cu­lar chan­ges that are not yet cli­ni­cal­ly rele­vant so ear­ly that pati­ents can still actively coun­ter­act them through life­style chan­ges (espe­ci­al­ly more exer­cise and tar­ge­ted (cardio)vascular trai­ning). In many cases, pati­ents can avo­id sur­gery altog­e­ther or delay it for a long time if they take the initiative.

Deter­mi­na­ti­on of arrhythmias

VASCASSIST detects car­diac arrhythmias.

Detec­tion of col­la­te­ral formation

VASCASSIST detects bypass arte­ries: The­se fine­ly bran­ched, endo­ge­nous new for­ma­ti­ons of arte­ries pro­vi­de essen­ti­al infor­ma­ti­on about alre­a­dy exis­ting arte­ri­al occlu­si­ons, com­pen­sa­ted for thanks to the body’s self-heal­ing powers. Howe­ver, the body’s mecha­nism to form the­se natu­ral bypas­ses starts too late in acu­te cases. The­r­e­fo­re, col­la­te­rals are always a seve­re war­ning sign.

Detec­tion of side differences

VASCASSIST reve­als blood pres­su­re dif­fe­ren­ces in arms and legs. 

Alt­hough cur­rent hyper­ten­si­on gui­de­lines have recom­men­ded this for some time, bila­te­ral blood pres­su­re mea­su­re­ments still hap­pen rela­tively rare­ly. Howe­ver, pro­no­un­ced side dif­fe­ren­ces are asso­cia­ted with an increased risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar events and hig­her mortality. 

Bes­i­des, mea­su­ring on both arms is recom­men­ded to avo­id mea­su­re­ment errors gene­ral­ly. Added to that is that one-sided mea­su­re­ments would risk over­loo­king exis­ting hyper­ten­si­on. Last­ly, blood pres­su­re dif­fe­ren­ces of the extre­mi­ties indi­ca­te par­ti­cu­lar dise­a­ses such as sub­cla­vi­an steno­sis or peri­phe­ral arte­ri­al occlu­si­ve dise­a­se (PAD/pAVK), who­se ear­ly detec­tion signi­fi­cant­ly impro­ves the prognosis.

Dia­gno­sis of exclu­si­on and dif­fe­ren­ti­al diagnostics

When sym­ptoms are unclear and need inter­pre­ta­ti­on, VASCASSIST pro­vi­des valuable assis­tance for dif­fe­ren­ti­al dia­gno­stics and dia­gno­sis of exclu­si­on: By ana­ly­zing the gra­phi­cal­ly dis­play­ed pul­se wave­forms, VASCASSIST enables the detec­tion of pre­vious­ly unde­tec­ted forms of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses. The­se often fall through the dia­gno­stic cracks with con­ven­tio­nal mea­su­re­ment methods. Ide­al­ly, this can signi­fi­cant­ly shor­ten the time from dia­gno­sis to the­ra­py. Ano­ther plus: pati­ents are spared years of odys­seys from doc­tor to doctor.

Sub­cla­vi­an ste­al syndrome

VASCASSIST can detect the rare Sub­cla­vi­an Ste­al Syndrome.