analyzed via proprietary algorithms, and the clinician
is sent a focused report.
“The adhesives are very comfortable to wear so the
device can be worn for 14 days,” said Judy Lenane,
RN, MHA, executive vice president and chief clinical officer for iRhythm in an interview with CSWN.
“They can shower, exercise, live their life, and have the
data collected.”
In a study of 146 patients who underwent simultaneous ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG) recording
with a 24-hour
Holter monitor
and a 14-day
adhesive patch
monitor, the
patch monitor
ZIO Patch
detected 96
arrhythmia events compared with 61 events detected
by the Holter (p < 0.001). Not surprisingly, patients
found the patch more comfortable to wear.12
“On the basis of these findings, novel, single-lead,
prolonged-duration, low-profile devices may soon
replace conventional Holter monitoring platforms
for the detection of arrhythmia events in patients
referred for ambulatory ECG monitoring,” said the
Scripps Translation Science Institute researchers, led
by Eric J. Topol, MD.
Referring to a recent study of the iRhythm device,
Sunil Kumar Agarwal, MD, PhD, stressed: “The interesting part is that… about 50% of the people we identified with atrial fibrillation had paroxysmal AF, meaning
we will not capture them on a 10-second ECG. Five out
of seven patients who had paroxysmal AF were not on
anticoagulation.” Dr. Agarwal is a fellow in cardiology
at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York. (Scan the
QR to see our interview with Dr. Agarwal.)
According to the company’s website, more than
300,000 patients have used the patch at more than
800 US institutions and it is widely reimbursed.
Does it really matter? After all, a just-published
population-based cohort study in Lancet Neurology
questioned the presumed importance of paroxysmal
AF as the major cause of cryptogenic stroke.13 However, in an accompanying editorial, Jose M. Ferro,
MD, from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, questioned the authors’ conclusion because the main study
did not use the new devices that allow for prolonged
heart rhythm monitoring. In other words, if you don’t
look carefully for AF, you
may not find it, but that
The Diagnostic Odyssey of
doesn’t mean it wasn’t
Patients with Undetected
AF: Advance in Ambulatory
there.14
Monitoring
With their purchase
CSWN Interviews: Sunil Kumar
of Corventis, Medtronic
Agarwal MD, PHD, Fellow in
also has a mobile cardiac
Cardiology at the Mt. Sinai
School of Medicine and Judy
telemetry system that
Lenane, Executive Viceuses a peel and stick
president and Chief Clinical
patch.
Officer for iRhythm.
InfoBionic (Lowell,
Massachusetts) is set to
commercialize its remote
patient monitoring system, the MoMe Kardia,
ACC.org/CSWN
Google
This
which is designed to help detect cardiac arrhythmias
in