Right ventricle imaging and echo important to treating patients presenting to critical care.

A recent study from the Icahn school of medicine at Mount Sinai in New York city concludes that a dilated RV is known to predict mortality in patients that contracted Covid-19 and reported to emergency. In interest of infection control and the need for point of care diagnostics, the study authors recommend using echocardiography as a means of assessing those at risk. [1]

This study demonstrates the importance that innovative technologies that augment the ECHO play in achieving better outcomes.  

VMS clearly gives accurate assessment of right ventricle.

Many vendors have tools utilizing 4D acquisitions to measure ventricular size and function. These require the ability to scan the whole of the ventricle of interest from the same scan position. This is frequently impossible in patients with poor acoustic windows, and in some patients with severe right ventricular dilatation, it can be impossible to fit the whole of the heart into the scan cone. Again, by combining multiple images taken from different windows, VMS allows even the largest ventricles to be accurately measured. It is also less reliant on perfect image quality because the final measurements are derived from sparse data.

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AUGMENTS ECHO SCAN/

MINIMAL CONTACT

The VMS+ provide measurements for volume and ejection fraction calculations for all four chambers of the heart. The mean percent difference between VMS and MRI results are within 10% for EDV, ESV, and EF with a 95% confidence.  [Ref: clinical trial results].

VMS is a  point of care technology that follows the typical workflow of a sonographer or cardiologist during his or her initial examination of a patient. Thus, the use of the VMS does not require additional contact with the patient.   In fact, measurements can be made on a separate workstation if one is using 3D, or after the patient has left the exam room if one is using 2D.

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VENDOR NEUTRAL

The Ventripoint solution is vendor neutral and works with echo images generated from any ultrasound system, irrespective of the make or model.

Could cardiac conditions be on the rise?

We still do not know if the virus could give rise to new cardiac conditions. However, we have  early evidence that suggests this.  A German study [2] reviewed the MRI scans of 100 recovering patients after two months of recovery time.  These were patients who contracted Covid but did not have any known cardiac condition. The researchers found that:

                  78% had cardiac involvement,

                  60% had myocardial inflammation

Also, a 12 year follow up study showed that of 25 patients, 11 patients (44%) were reporting cardiovascular abnormalities.[3]. 

These studies demonstrate that clinicians may want to monitor a patient, who presents with symptoms associated to cardiac conditions  after recovery in order to identify early any concerns and secure better outcomes.  

VMS+ HELPS  TO MONITOR THE HEART  MORE CLOSELY DURING A PANDEMIC

VMS provides cardiologists and clinicians with the ability to monitor a patient over a period of time, providing a way to look at longitudinal changes. Often the change over time, as opposed to the absolute chamber size, is a more useful indicator of whether further assessment may be required. Doing this with MRI may be prohibitive, both from the availability during a pandemic and cost perspectives.