According to the American Heart Association, one of every five deaths in the U.S. is attributable to coronary heart disease with 50 percent of heart-attack fatalities occurring within one hour of symptom onset and before the patient even reaches the hospital.
Reducing the time in which a patient can receive the appropriate medical treatment can mean the difference between life and death.
Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale is one of three hospitals in Florida, and the only facility in South Florida, to participate in a new trial called the ALERTS Pivotal Study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the AngelMed Guardian System.
The first AngelMed Guardian System implant procedure in south Florida was successfully performed in May at Holy Cross Hospital by Dr. Rishi Anand, the principal investigator, for the ALERTS study. The patient had atypical warning signs prior to her heart attack and subsequently enrolled into the ALERTS trial seven weeks after her cardiac event.The AngelMed Guardian system is an implantable cardiac monitor/alert system designed to track electrical changes in the heart that may indicate the early onset of a heart attack. The device then alerts a patient to seek medical attention.
Heart attacks are typically caused by a blood clot closing one of the three major coronary arteries, which results in a shift in the ST segment of the heart signal due to the electrical difference between the portion of the heart muscle fed by the closed artery and the rest of the heart still receiving oxygen.
The AngelMed Guardian system is comprised of an internal implantable device about the size of a standard pacemaker with a lead into the heart, an external telemetry device, and a programmer that aids physicians in evaluating heart signals.
