Cardioscan™, an “intelligent stethoscope” that records and analyzes cardiac sounds, a Zargis Medical device, was just recognized by the Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards.
Here’s how the company explains its product:
Zargis has developed Cardioscan, the first and only computer-aided medical device to support physicians in analyzing heart sounds for the identification of suspected murmurs, a potential sign of heart disease. Cardioscan is easy to use, non-invasive, portable, and takes just minutes to perform. Developed by biomedical scientists from Siemens and Zargis over the past seven years, Cardioscan implements voice-guided protocol and graphical user interface while maintaining an efficient physician workflow. The system provides a summary of findings in terms that are readily understood by physicians with more quantitative auscultatory information than is possible through listening alone. Thus, Cardioscan enhances auscultation which has been universally employed through a stethoscope for nearly two hundred years…
The product acquires, records, and analyzes the acoustic signals of the heart. The analysis identifies specific heart sounds that may be present. Identified sounds include, S1, S2 and suspected murmurs.
The results from a multi-center clinical validation study demonstrated that Cardioscan possessed a sensitivity of 91.8% and a specificity of 68.0% in the detection of heart murmurs.
