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According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease is the
number one cause of death in the United States accounting for 950,000, or 41%,
of total mortalities from all causes.
The total cost of cardiovascular disease and stroke, including direct costs
and lost productivity, is estimated by the AHA to be $326.6 billion for the year
2000. Hypertension and Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) are two of the most important
healthcare concerns today.
Heart disease can best be characterized as a chronic, degenerative disease.
The pattern of degeneration follows a typical course that is summarized in the
illustration below.
The majority of cardiovascular diseases begin as peripheral vascular disease
and Hypertension. Efforts at early detection and management of Hypertension have
been focused on the measurement of arterial blood pressure.
However, arterial blood pressure has been shown to be inadequate for effective
diagnosis and treatment of Hypertension. It is estimated by the National Heart,
Lung and Blood Institute that 50 million Americans have Hypertension (blood pressure
in excess of 140 mmHg of systolic pressure and 90 mmHg of diastolic pressure).
It is also estimated that a large percentage (65-75%) of those are either
undiagnosed or receiving inadequate treatment.
One reason for this lack of adequate diagnosis and treatment is the difficulty
in acquiring accurate and repeatable measurements of blood pressure from existing
blood pressure monitoring methods and devices.
Furthermore, targeting effective treatment of hypertension once it has been
diagnosed is difficult since the underlying modality of the cause of hypertension
is not determined by blood pressure alone.
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Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), the end stage of heart
disease, currently affects over five million Americans and is estimated to cost
the U.S. healthcare system over $40 billion each year.
Hospital management of CHF requires the measurement of a range of cardiovascular
parameters that are only available through the use of invasive catheters (surgically
inserted into arteries or veins). These invasive measurement methods are costly,
offer limited accuracy, and have high complication rates.
Stroke is a great American tragedy. Stroke can dramatically disable the victim,
causing financial hardship for the family of the victim as well as society at
large.
Stroke accounts for $41B of lost productivity in the USA each year. Over 600,000
Americans suffer a stroke each year and up to 90% of stroke victims had hypertension
prior to their stroke.
A non-invasive device that allows early detection of cardiovascular disease
would contribute significantly to reducing the cost of cardiovascular disease
state management and dramatically improve the overall quality of patient care.
Additional background information can be found through the following links:
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