This 'Super EKG' Could Diagnose Heart Disease in 90 Seconds

For many adults, moderate or severe chest pain can have some very sinister connotations. Fearing it's a sign of an imminent cardiac event like a heart attack, sufferers head to the emergency room for a diagnosis. In most cases, the chest pain is not life-threatening, but that's determined only after a series of expensive and time-consuming tests like an EKG, treadmill test, and blood work.

That may soon change, thanks to an enterprising 22-year-old college dropout. Peeyush Shrivastava and his biotech company Genetesis have engineered a body-sized 3D scanner called Faraday that creates a digital composite of the heart. The device looks at the magnetic fields surrounding the organ during normal cardiac activity, a process known as magnetocardiography. Shrivastava says the software, using various algorithms, can determine whether a person is having a cardiac event.

Genetesis says that after a patient submits to the scan—which is noninvasive, has no radiation, and takes roughly 90 seconds—technicians can examine the 3D rendering and be alerted to problems relating to lack of blood flow or coronary artery disease. By the time the results are evaluated, a patient could be discharged within four hours, eliminating the need for an overnight stay.

Chest pain is a leading cause of brief emergency room visits for adults over 45, with only 6 percent of the 8 million visits annually resulting in a diagnosis of heart attack. Reducing the time it takes to process these patients would reduce health care spending, ease patient anxiety, and provide more rapid intervention in the case of a cardiac event.

Genetesis is currently conducting trials of the technology at St. John's Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit. Once that's completed, the company will likely pursue a larger study with the eventual goal of FDA approval. It could be years before the device is in regular use, but if Genetesis's projections are accurate, it will be well worth the wait.

[h/t CNN]