Is Your Smartphone The Future Of Heart Disease Detection? This Finnish Startup Thinks So

CardioSignal, a Finnish startup, has developed a system that uses smartphone motion sensors to detect heart disease. This innovation is a significant breakthrough in the health tech industry.

What Happened: The company’s CEO, Juuso Blomster, a clinical cardiologist, shared that CardioSignal’s technology is based on the motion sensors found in smartphones. These sensors are sensitive enough to measure the opening and closing of heart valves, a function typically only possible with a heart ultrasound, reported The Next Web on Thursday.

Users place their phones on their chests, and the sensors record the heart’s motion for a minute. The data is then sent to a secure cloud service for analysis. The technology can detect atrial fibrillation (AFib), the most common cardiac rhythm disorder, and has been validated for clinical use.

CardioSignal’s technology has been analyzed in over 20 peer-reviewed publications, and it has been classified as a CE class IIa medical device, making it the first validated technology to detect heart disease without specialized equipment.

Although the technology currently only detects AFib, the company is working on adding detection for other ailments such as heart failure, aortic stenosis, coronary artery disease, and pulmonary artery hypertension.

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Despite CardioSignal’s technology’s potential, it faces competition from smartwatches produced by tech giants like Samsung and Apple, which can also detect AFib.

Why It Matters: The CardioSignal technology is a significant advancement in the health tech industry, as it offers a non-invasive and accessible method for detecting heart disease. This development comes at a time when other companies are also making strides in heart disease treatment and detection.

Earlier this week, the FDA approved Abbott Laboratories’ TriClip transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) system, designed to treat tricuspid regurgitation (TR), a leaky tricuspid valve. This approval marked a significant milestone in the treatment of heart valve disease. When combined with CardioSignal’s detection technology, it represents a significant step forward in the fight against heart disease.

These developments are indicative of the rapid advancements being made in the health tech industry, and they hold the promise of improving the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, a leading cause of death worldwide.

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