Just when people were getting used to the FAST exam in emergency medicine (Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma) comes a whole new FAST exam, and this one’s focused exclusively on kindey function.
Out of Indianapolis comes
FAST’s technology measures the body’s kidney function, known as glomerular filtration rate, or GFR, by monitoring inert markers that have been injected into a patient’s bloodstream. A fiber optic device inserted into a vein through a catheter tracks the markers, measuring how effectively the body filters waste giving an accurate filtration rate reading in only 40 minutes. There is currently not available any way to accurately and quickly measure GFR. Current estimates, which are not useful in Acute Kidney Injury, have accuracy limitations, and can take up to 24 hours for a reading.
They’ve been winning awards and funding and today announced a faster (ok, “expedited”) review by the FDA:
“Our team is thrilled with the expedited review status granted by the FDA,” said Joe Muldoon, chief executive officer of FAST. “It was especially gratifying that the FDA determined we had demonstrated that this is ‘breakthrough technology’ that may provide a clinically meaningful advantage. This will help accelerate our pursuit of human trial data, and eventual market launch.”
Originally developed by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine, FAST is partnering with Purdue University to assist in pre-clinical trials, and the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology for continued development of the device. A pilot human trial of the technology could begin as early as 2010, with full commercialization anticipated by 2012.
We think it’s releated to this research out of MGH but cannot for the life of us figure out what FAST stands for. Or find a website to point you to. Is there such thing as developing TOO fast?