AngelMed for Early Recognition and Treatment of STEMI (ALERTS)
A prospective, randomized multicenter study of subjects with a high-risk of having a myocardial infarction (MI) due to acute coronary syndrome or bypass surgery.
The largest proportion of the total pre-hospital delay is the interval between the onset of symptoms and the decision to seek medical treatment. Finnegan et al. described that the reasons for delay in seeking medical evaluation generally stem from patient misconceptions about symptom experience, expectations, and attribution. In many cases, patients expect the type of heart attack that they often see in movies or on television: the kind of crushing chest pain that drops a person to the ground. The reality is that many heart attacks are much “quieter,” causing only mild chest pain or discomfort or other symptoms such as shortness of breath or diaphoresis.
If patients would take action during the first hour following symptom onset, many lives and significant cost could be saved. It is technically possible to monitor EKGs and detect an acute infarction, even if the patient is unaware that he or she is experiencing a heart attack. However, currently available systems have limitations in the home environment. Twelve lead EKG systems require a clinically trained individual to place them. Holter monitors suffer from limitations in the ability to detect ST deviation due to low compliance and are limited in practice to 24 to 72 hours of monitoring. Systems using surface leads are all subject to noise and other artifacts from patient movement and body orientation, particularly if the patient is ambulatory.
A potentially ideal solution is to implant a device that measures heart signals from inside the heart and will alert the patient when it detects electrogram characteristics set by the physician as worthy of medical evaluation.
Sponsor: Angel Medical Systems, Inc.
Enrollment Status: Open