St. Mike’s to use AI in heart health assessments

TORONTO – Ventripoint Diagnostics Ltd. is pleased to announce that St. Michael’s Hospital, in Toronto, has ordered the AI-based VMS+ complete heart analysis system for use in clinical evaluations of cardiac patients.

Dr. Howard Leong-Poi (pictured) and Dr. Chi-Ming Chow are spearheading the VMS+ acquisition. Dr. Leong-Poi, is the Head of the Division of Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital and a Clinician Scientist in the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science. Dr. Chow is the Director of the Echocardiography Lab and has expertise in the development of innovative technologies in the practice of echocardiography. Both have clinical interests in cardiac imaging in ischemic heart disease and valvular heart disease.

“Artificial intelligence holds a great deal of promise for many clinical imaging applications and we are very excited to participate with this leading-edge technology to more accurately assess cardiac chamber volumes and function by echocardiography,” commented Dr. Leong-Poi.

“We are very pleased to have the interest and commitment from such a high profile cardiac institution in our own backyard,” commented Desmond Hirson, president of Ventripoint. “We believe that our AI technology and product in the hands of Drs. Leong-Poi and Chow will make a valuable difference to patient outcomes.”

There are many potential applications for this innovative technology – including assessing ventricular volumes and function after percutaneous valve interventions, and in response to cancer chemotherapies, and tying these to clinical outcomes.

Ventripoint Diagnostics Ltd. is a medical device company engaged in the development and commercialization of diagnostic tools to monitor patients with heart disease – a major cause of death in developed countries and a rapidly rising incidence in emerging countries.

The Ventripoint Medical System (VMS) is said to be the first cost effective and accurate tool for measuring the function of all 4 chambers of the heart, and is the only approved way to generate substantially equivalent results to the gold-standard MRI for right ventricular volumes using 2D echocardiography.

Approximately 50% of patients with heart failure have dysfunctional right hearts which go undetected and untreated, leading to repeat hospitalizations.  The VMS is designed to reduce healthcare costs while improving quality of life in patients with heart disease.

The company is developing a suite of applications for all major heart diseases and imaging modalities, including congenital heart disease, left or right heart failure and normal hearts – a multi-billion dollar market potential.

By using images produced from existing medical imaging systems, the Ventripoint Medical System (VMS) generates accurate heart-volumetric measurements and a three-dimensional model in a rapid and inexpensive manner, the company said.

The VMS enables medical professionals to economically obtain accurate three-dimensional models with critical volume and functional measurements of a patient’s heart chambers in only a few minutes more than the time needed for a routine echocardiogram.

Measuring volume and function is fundamental in evaluating patients to determine the severity and progression of their disease, assess the effectiveness of treatment, gauge prognosis and decide on the timing of surgical and pharmacological interventions.

These key measurements and the 3D model for visual assessment provide medical professionals with some of the critical information necessary for clinical diagnosis and monitoring of their patients.

About St. Michael’s Hospital
St. Michael’s is a major teaching and research hospital with expertise in diverse areas of healthcare. The Cardiovascular Disease & Diabetes Research Program at St. Michael’s Hospital is extensive, covering basic biomedical sciences, translational research, clinical and populations-based studies, and knowledge translation. Their researchers are actively involved in training future surgeon-scientists, developing national guidelines in cardiovascular and diabetes medicine, and working continuously toward the application of discoveries to cure disease, reduce morbidity and extend the life of patients.

About Ventripoint Diagnostics Ltd.
Ventripoint’s technology is a leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) approach known as Knowledge-Based Reconstruction (KBR), used to create applications to monitor heart disease, a leading cause of death worldwide. The VMS+ is the first cost-effective and accurate AI tool for measuring whole heart function using conventional ultrasound. The Company has developed a suite of applications for all major heart diseases and is actively commercializing the approach to improve cardiac care.