IIT Madras researchers develop handy device to assess blood vessel health

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have developed a handy device to assess the health and age of blood vessels and thereby provide early screening for cardiovascular diseases, the institute said on Monday This novel non-invasive device, which is easy-to-use - ARTSENS® - is designed to be used in routine medical examination 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,'' a release stated.

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 commercialisation after extensive testing. IIT Madras team intends to deploy this to conduct over a million vascular screenings per year, the release further said.

The technology and field results of this device has already been published in over 100 scientific peer-reviewed publications. The latest research papers published in the Journal of Hypertension was co-authored by P M Nabeel, Lead Research Scientist, HTIC-IIT Madras, V Raj Kiran, Ph D scholar, Department of Electrical Engineering, and Jayaraj Joseph, assistant professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, who led the research. A paper was published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Despite tremendous improvements in treatments and procedures, heart and blood vessel-related diseases continue to be the leading cause of death throughout the world. Early detection and timely intervention holds the key, it said.

Highlighting the unique features, Jayaraj Joseph said "our 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." Prof Dick Thijssen, Radboud University Medical Center, The Netherlands, who also collaborated on this project, said the latest Artsens device was used in recent clinical studies on over 600 subjects.

"This indigenously developed and validated device offers 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" said Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, faculty-in-charge, HTIC.

Another collaborator Dinu S Chandran, Department of Physiology, AIIMS New Delhi, said the device could assess both local and arterial stiffness along with central blood pressure and is extremely useful in estimating vascular health status as an early marker in multiple disease conditions.

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