Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) researchers have developed a novel, non-invasive device to assess the health and age of blood vessels and thereby provide early screening for cardiovascular diseases.
Artsens is designed such that it can be used in routine medical examinations by even non-experts, to assess and predict vascular health. It is powered by a proprietary non-imaging probe and an intelligent computing platform and is developed by the Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC) at IIT Madras.
The device has been assessed on more than 5,000 human subjects. The technology already has five utility patents in the U.S., European Union, and India, 10 design patents, and awaits awarding of 28 patents in various jurisdictions.
The product is ready for technology transfer and commercialization after extensive testing. The IIT Madras team intends to deploy this to conduct over a million vascular screenings per year.
The technology and field results of this device has already been published in over 100 scientific peer-reviewed publications. The latest research papers were published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Hypertension and American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
The research was led by Dr. Jayaraj Joseph, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras. The paper in the Journal of Hypertension was co-authored by Dr. P. M. Nabeel, Lead Research Scientist, HTIC-IIT Madras, Mr. V. Raj Kiran, PhD Scholar, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, and Dr. Jayaraj Joseph.
Dr. Jayaraj Joseph, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “Reliable assessment of vascular health requires a measurement to be performed directly on the blood vessel walls and not on the skin surface. Our Aetsens device can assess the effect of molecular and protein level changes in the vessel wall caused due to disease and ageing, by measuring the material property in a completely non-invasive and accurate manner.”
Dr. Jayaraj Joseph added, “Artsens makes vascular ageing assessment accessible to a large population in both clinical and non-clinical settings such as in a gym and health centre, among others.”
Artsens has been approved for clinical studies in India, US, and Europe. An extensive clinical study is underway at AIIMS New Delhi. Scientists at Radboud University Medical Center, The Netherlands, are using this device to investigate the association between arterial age, physical (in)activity, and cardiovascular events, and AIIMS New Delhi researchers are using it to study and understand the physiological underpinnings of arterial ageing in various disease conditions.
Prof. Dick Thijssen, Radboud UMC, The Netherlands, who also collaborated on this project, said, “We have used the latest Artsens device in our recent clinical studies on more than 600 subjects. Easy to use, portable devices allow large-scale research studies to truly understand vascular ageing. Ultimately, easy-to-use devices that evaluate vascular health have potential to improve clinical practice and for wide-spread adoption.”
“Portable and easy-to-use devices such as Artsens, when indigenously developed and validated, offer a significant cost advantage and can be a game changer in large-scale screening and can be used by any stakeholder interested in primary prevention strategies” says Dr. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Faculty-in-Charge, HTIC, IIT Madras
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first hand-held, easy-to-use, minimally operator-dependent, and cost-effective device that is suited for routine clinical practice and large-scale screening,” said the scientists – Dr. P. M. Nabeel, V. Raj Kiran and Dr. Jayaraj Joseph – write in their recent paper in the Journal of Hypertension.
Dr. Dinu S Chandran, Department of Physiology, AIIMS New Delhi, said, “The ability of Artsens to assess both local and arterial stiffness along with central blood pressure, all in a single test makes it extremely useful in estimating vascular health status as an early marker in multiple disease conditions.”
Artsens simultaneously checks for arterial stiffness and central blood pressure. The device comprises pressure cuffs to be affixed at the upper arm and thighs and a probe applied to the surface of the neck to detect the carotid artery. It measures carotid arterial stiffness, aortic pulse wave velocity, and central blood pressure, all three being important markers of cardiovascular health.
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