FantAstrial

27/05/2021

Ultromics’ AI-driven ultrasound measurements were vital for WASE COVID

https://fantastrial.com/ultromics-ai-driven-ultrasound-measurements-were-vital-for-wase-covid/

Ultromics is a global health technology firm which provides AI echocardiography analysis. Their software was critical for the success of WASE COVID, a study in which right ventricular and left ventricular dysfunction was found to be common and ominous in COVID-19 patients.Echo Go: deformation im

05/05/2021

The next Apple Watch to measure glucose and alcohol levels

Rockley Photonics

https://fantastrial.com/the-next-apple-watch-to-measure-glucose-and-alcohol-levels/

Rockley Photonics is a leading supplier of integrated optical components for consumer sensors and healthcare. They have offices in the US and UK. Immediately prior to going live, the firm let it be known that their best customer is none other than Apple. This news really created a storm of speculati

21/04/2021

The Apple Respiratory Study – can the Apple Watch detect COVID-19?

https://fantastrial.com/the-apple-respiratory-study-can-the-apple-watch-detect-covid-19/

Back in January, the results of a Stanford study made us wonder; could smartwatches detect COVID-19? Apple definitely seems to think so as they recently announced the Apple Respiratory Study.Apple Watch or Swiss Army knife?It can detect atrial fibrillation at home or in the hospital. It can

14/04/2021

Tempus Labs AI that predicts AF from ECG granted breakthrough device status

Geisinger

https://fantastrial.com/tempus-ai-that-predicts-af-from-ecg-granted-breakthrough-device-status/

A convolutional neural network developed by a Tempus Labs / Geisinger Health collaboration received breakthrough medical device status for silent AF detection. Like many other ECGs that stare at AIs, all it needs is a patient's baseline ECG!The modelThis model was developed through deep lear

07/04/2021

Apple is looking to hire an in-house cardiologist

https://fantastrial.com/apple-is-looking-to-hire-an-in-house-cardiologist/

A recent job listing over at Apple's website provides a quite unconventional career opportunity for unconventional doctors. Apple is looking for a trained cardiologist with experience in the clinical development of regulated health products. Big stuff on the horizonApple is trying hard to pr

24/03/2021

The Coala Heart Monitor helps with palpitation anxiety: the RedHeart study

https://fantastrial.com/the-coala-heart-monitor-helps-with-palpitation-anxiety:-the-redheart-study/

According to the recently published RedHeart study, the Coala Heart Monitor really helped women with palpitations overcome their fear and anxiety. In some cases, it actually helped them prove their concerns were entirely justified.The RedHeart studyThe RedHeart study is very worthy of mentio

16/03/2021

AIs that stare at ECGs: AliveCor Kardia-K is a bloodless potassium test

https://fantastrial.com/ais-that-stare-at-ecgs-alivecor-kardia-k-is-a-bloodless-potassium-test/

A cross-industry collaboration hit the news recently: AstraZeneca will support AliveCor further develop Kardia-K. Kardia-K enables non-invasive potassium measurement by looking at Kardia's famous one-lead ECG. Hyperkalemia - a silent killer in kidney failureThe healthy human body is very goo

09/03/2021

AIs that stare at ECGs: Taiwanese AI outperforms doctors in 13 ECG patterns

https://fantastrial.com/ais-that-stare-at-ecgs-taiwan-ai-ecg-stemi/

A research group from Taiwan recently published a paper in the European Heart Journal - Digital Health. In that paper, they report on their newly-developed neural network. Its goal is to screen AIs for 13 different ECG features - all at the same time.ECGs are not just for myocardial infarctions

02/03/2021

A primer on atrial fibrillation and wearables

https://fantastrial.com/a-primer-on-atrial-fibrillation-and-wearables/

Smartwatches, smartphones, ECG patches. These days all sorts of devices try to detect atrial fibrillation. The cause is noble - save users from its deadly after-effects. But when does data become too much? Atrial fibrillation is a spectrumAF comes in many flavors. For the sake of this articl

23/02/2021

Do activity trackers really increase users’ daily activity?

https://fantastrial.com/do-activity-trackers-really-increase-users'-daily-activity/

BMJ

Activity trackers just received an endorsement by one of the most reliable means of doing science - a BMJ meta-analysis. But things are - as always - somewhat complicated.The studyAn international team of researchers sifted through thousands of trials. Their goal was to find those that exami

14/02/2021

Pixel phones will soon track early signs of COVID-19 with their cameras

https://fantastrial.com/pixel-phones-will-soon-track-early-signs-of-covid-19-with-their-cameras/

One of the next Google Fit updates will enable Pixel phones to track breathing and heart rate through their cameras. Although marketed for fitness use, the same tech could warn their users of early COVID-19 signs.The science behind the techAs we have previously covered on Fantastrial, measur

08/02/2021

Random forest algorithm predicts intubation in COVID-19 patients

https://fantastrial.com/random-forest-predicts-intubation-in-covid-19/

The urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to many machine learning projects trying to help doctors. Now, researchers at Mount Sinai created an algorithm that looks at patients' hospital data and predicts whether they'll need invasive ventillation a.k.a. intubation.The datasetFive hospital

31/01/2021

Ikure partners with IBM to bring healthcare the masses

IBM India

https://fantastrial.com/ikure-partners-with-ibm-to-bring-healthcare-to-the-masses/

Researchers and entrepreneurs in Europe and the US are struggling to come up with mHealth innovations that improve their countries' already good health system. iKure CEO Sujay Santra is of a different opinion - he thinks mHealth can create nigh-universal access to basic healthcare to the bottom of t

24/01/2021

NumeriCor’s computer model can predict CRT success

https://fantastrial.com/numericors-computer-model-can-predict-crt-success/

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is the most advanced piece of tech available for heart failure. The problem is that 30% of patients that undergo this invasive and expensive treatment don't actually see any benefit. NumeriCor GmbH, a research spin-off based in Graz, Austria has developed a ca

17/01/2021

The American College of Cardiology will use BioIntellisense tech in its congress to protect participants from COVID-19

https://fantastrial.com/acc-21-will-use-biointellisense-tech-to-protect-participants-from-covid-19/

ACC.21 will take place in the Georgia World Congress Center (Atlanta, GA) in May. In-person congresses are risky business these days - let's not forget that it was a bio-tech conference that brought COVID-19 to the Northeastern US. The American College of Cardiology has an ace up the sleeve - the Bi

10/01/2021

Paperwatch: Can smartwatches detect COVID-19?

https://fantastrial.com/paperwatch-can-smartwatches-detect-covid19/

Back in August, we asked: can we monitor COVID-19 patients with smartwatches? Three months later, a research team from Stanford asked something even extreme: Can smartwatches detect COVID-19 even before symptoms arise?The dataUnder one of Stanford's long-standing digital health protocols, re

03/01/2021

AI detects heart failure by staring at ECGs

https://fantastrial.com/ai-detects-heart-failure-by-looking-at-ecgs/

Another week, another AI. This time, a South Korean team of researchers trained an AI to detect heart failure. The only thing it needs - ECGs.The AIThis deep learning AI was developed using many hidden layers of neurons to learn complex patterns from the simple data it received. It trained

01/01/2021

Happy new year!

20/12/2020

DeepMind put the games down and solved protein folding

https://fantastrial.com/deepmind-put-the-games-down-and-solved-protein-folding/

"This is a problem that I was beginning to think would not get solved in my lifetime" said Professor Dame Janet Thornton, a leading researcher in the field of computational biology. She was, of course, referring to protein folding. This problem, almost as old as knowledge of proteins itself, was rec

13/12/2020

iGenomics brings DNA sequencing to your iPhone

https://fantastrial.com/igenomics-brings-dna-sequencing-to-your-iphone/

Those that took Biology classes in the previous decade will tell you that DNA sequencing devices take up a big chunk of a lab's counter space.This is simply not true anymore, with devices like Oxford Nanopore Technology's MinION fitting effortlessly in your pocket. In this spirit, a team at the Scha

06/12/2020

A structured approach towards cardiology and social media

https://fantastrial.com/a-structured-approach-towards-cardiology-and-social-media/

Social media have become a central part of medical research, education and practice in cardiology. In an all-encompassing review, Ricardo Ladeiras-Lopes and colleagues tried to make sense of this fluid relationship. Their paper recently appeared in the European Heart Journal - Digital Health (which

22/11/2020

Amazon Pharmacy now sells prescription drugs
Amazon.com

https://fantastrial.com/amazon-pharmacy-now-sells-prescription-drugs/

After Amazon Care, Amazon goes all out in the market of prescription drugs by launching Amazon Pharmacy. What does this mean for patients and competitors? We decided to find out. Amazon PharmacyLess than a week ago and with little short notice, Amazon announced Amazon this newest foray in th

15/11/2020

AIs that stare at ECGs: Mayo AI network detects AF risk

https://fantastrial.com/ais-that-stare-at-ecgs-ai-network-at-mayo-clinic-detects-af-risk/

More and more research groups experiment with thousands of ECGs and AI. Thus, here at Fantastrial we are launching the "AIs that stare at ECGs" series. First up: a convolutional neural network that detects patient at risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AF) by looking at their ECGs.The study

08/11/2020

Mail-to-patient CAM Patch by BardyDx keeps patients home

https://fantastrial.com/mail-to-patient-cam-patch-bardydx/

Bardy Diagnostics Inc

The Carnation Ambulatory Monitor (CAM) entered made the headlines after receiving CE certification. Here at Fantastrial we decided to take a look at this device and BardyDx, the company behind it.The CAM PatchAs stated on its website, the Carnation Ambulatory Monitor — or CAM — is a ligh

01/11/2020

AI predicts ICU mortality by looking at ECGs

https://fantastrial.com/ai-predicts-icu-mortality-by-looking-at-ecgs/

Researchers at Mayo clinic set out to create an AI that detects heart failure by looking at ECGs. Instead, they ended up with something even better; an AI that actually predicts patients' risk of death.The original aimLast year, researchers at the Mayo Clinic got access to almost 100000 ECGs

25/10/2020

ICD checkup via Bluetooth? There’s an app for that

https://fantastrial.com/icd-checkup-via-bluetooth-theres-an-app-for-that/

Abbott's Gallant CRT-D (biventricular cardiac defibrillator) is the first Bluetooth equipped implantable device. The device received the all-clear from FDA back in July and was recently fitted in an American patient for the first time.Abbott's flagship device - now with Bluetooth Patients wi

18/10/2020

The Coala Heart Monitor can detect AF says TEASE trial

https://fantastrial.com/the-coala-heart-monitor-can-detect-af-says-tease-trial/

BMJ

Less than a month ago we reviewed the Coala Heart Monitor, praising its shift to patient use in atrial fibrillation (AF). A study recently published in the BMJ showed that this focus paid off.The TEASE trialAccording to the BMJ paper, the researchers recruited 100 patients that had a stroke

12/10/2020

Doccla virtual wards: patients admitted in the comfort of home
nhs.uk

https://fantastrial.com/doccla-virtual-wards/

Inpatients on an outpatient basis. That may sound like an oxymoron, but that's exactly the NHS is doing, with help from Doccla virtual wards. The rationale of virtual wardsPatients with life-threatening chronic diseases need regular care and follow-up. Traditionally, this has only been possi

08/10/2020

05/10/2020

Doctors aren't that good at ECGs, either

https://fantastrial.com/doctors-arent-that-good-at-ecgs-either/

A classic argument for self-driving cars is that they don't need to be perfect; just better than humans. That is a pretty low bar, although one that AI-driven cars are still having trouble with. The same goes with ECG interpretations - AI needs not be perfect, just better than human doctors. This be

03/10/2020

29/09/2020

In the Apple Heart Study 0.5% of the 419,297 self-enrolled smartwatch users received an irregular pulse notification, 34% of which revealed atrial fibrillation in 1-week ECG patch monitoring.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1901183

Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Large-Scale Assessment of a Smartwatch to Identify Atrial Fibrillation

27/09/2020

Coala: An Eko Duo killer?

Coala Life

https://fantastrial.com/coala-an-eko-duo-killer/

Coala Life is a Swedish medical technology and life science company that focuses on heart diagnostics and digital health. Their latest product is the Coala. Its description may sound familiar - single-lead ECG and stethoscope combined in a single device. Sound familiar? The Coala has a direct compet

20/09/2020

ATCOR plans to enable home monitoring of central blood pressure

https://fantastrial.com/atcor-plans-to-enable-home-monitoring-of-central-blood-pressure/

ATCOR, subsidiary of Australian fim CardieX recently signed a three-year deal with Chinese Andon. The goal -develop and market home monitoring devices containing ATCOR's SphygmoCor technology.SphygmoCor is crucial for CV disease managementSphygmoCor is ATCOR's signature technology. It enable

06/09/2020

Fitbit Sense – one smartwatch to rule them all?

https://fantastrial.com/fitbit-sense-one-smartwatch-to-rule-them-all/

Fitbit recently announced the Fitbit Sense, a smartwatch filled to the brim with state-of-the-art tech. Their purpose? Give users a complete picture of their health.The goodiesApart from quasi-experimental features such as the blood pressure cuff previously seen on the Omron smartwatch, the

30/08/2020

AIs can’t detect coronary artery disease in selfies – yet

https://fantastrial.com/ais-cant-detect-coronary-artery-disease-in-selfies-yet/

Chinese researchers claim to have developed an AI that can tell if patients have clogged arteries through their selfies. But can it really detect coronary artery disease in selfies? Things aren't that simple - let's take a closer look.The studyChinese researchers took 4 photos of each of the

17/08/2020

Can we monitor COVID-19 patients with the Apple Watch?

https://fantastrial.com/can-we-monitor-covid-19-patients-with-the-apple-watch/

A team of scientists of the Bordeaux University hospital think so, according to a study published in the Circulation journal. But why should we monitor COVID-19 patients with the Apple Watch?COVID-19 drugs are not idealAs of the writing of this article, COVID-19 drugs are messy. Most of them

02/08/2020

SentiAR: Electrophysiology meets AR

https://fantastrial.com/sentiar-electrophysiology-meets-ar/

Not more than a week passed since our review of the inHEART system, and a new innovation comes to the EP lab. SentiAR takes standard views from electroanatomic mapping systems (EAMS) and brings them out of the screen and right in front of the cardiologist!SentiAR: Eyes high, hands offWith th

19/07/2020

inHEART promises to change cardiac electrophysiology

https://fantastrial.com/inheart-promises-to-change-cardiac-electrophysiology/

inHEART, a spin-off company by French tech institutes Inria and LYRIC, received $4.2 million dollars by VC firm Elaia. What they intend to do with this money is simple: change electrophysiology studies as we know them. What is electrophysiology? Clinical cardiac electrophysiology (EP) is a s

05/07/2020

The EU isn’t happy about the Google’s Fitbit takeover

https://fantastrial.com/the-eu-isnt-happy-about-the-googles-fitbit-takeover/

Way back in November, we warned that Google algorithms being fed with Fitbit's data could be a nightmare scenario. Someone high up in the EU must be reading our articles, as an official investigation has begun on the matter.What Google saysGoogle reps are very clear on the matter: Google wo