AngioDefender test assesses cardiovascular risk
Recently approved by Health Canada, the AngioDefender test is simple, non-invasive, painless, and provides an instant report on the health of your cardiovascular system, identifying CVD risk in otherwise asymptomatic people and motivating health behaviour change in higher risk groups. Developed by Everist Health and made available in Canada through Closing the Gap Healthcare, the AngioDefender technology measures the health of the endothelium – the single-cell-thick interior lining of all the blood vessels in the body.
“For a health professional to be able to measure vascular health in such a simple, straightforward way is truly novel,” says Dr. Neville Suskin, medical director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation and Secondary Prevention Program and a Lawson Health Research Institute scientist, St. Joseph’s Health Care London, who has been using the AngioDefender in clinical trials for the past 15 months.
Through a blood pressure cuff, the AngioDefender runs through a series of inflations and deflations to analyze your endothelium’s response to increased blood flow. By combining blood pressure measurement, pulse wave analysis and a proprietary data analysis algorithm, the AngioDefender produces your unique “flow-mediated dilation” score, which when combined with your other risk factors calculates your vascular age.
“Until now, the gold standard tool was ultrasound but it’s not regularly used in clinical practice because it’s costly and takes substantial expertise to operate,” says Dr. Suskin. “Our team has found that the AngioDefender™ is feasible to use in a busy cardiac rehabilitation practice setting. It doesn’t take long and patients are keen to learn what the machine has to say about their vascular health.”
The AngioDefender test is currently available throughout Ontario, at clinics in Toronto, Mississauga, London and Windsor, and plans are to have testing widely available across Canada in coming months. A doctor’s referral is not required.
To schedule a test at a GTA clinic, visit www.closingthegap.ca/angiodefender.
“The AngioDefender test takes less than 20 minutes, but it could enable you to add another 20 years to your life,” says Yianni Soumalias, director, business development at Closing the Gap Healthcare.
About Closing the Gap Healthcare
Closing the Gap Healthcare (CTG) is Canadian-owned and provides high quality community and clinic-based healthcare services. With nearly 2,000 regulated healthcare professionals, CTG provides a range of healthcare services in the community, in hospitals, and in clinics across Ontario and Nova Scotia including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, registered massage therapy, social work, dietician services, nursing services, personal support services and healthcare consulting. CTG is also the Canadian representative for the AngioDefender, a breakthrough device that tests cardiovascular health. For more information about Closing the Gap Healthcare, please go to www.closingthegap.ca.
About Everist Health
Everist Health, Inc. is a personalized medicine company, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which develops and commercializes medically unique diagnostic and prognostic tests which help patients and their physicians manage their personal health. Everist Health is focused on rapidly growing disease areas including cancer and cardiovascular disease. Everist Health’s innovative products successfully integrate with mobile digital services, smartphones and tablet computers resulting in advanced medical technology which, until now, has been confined to the hospital setting. For more information about Everist Health, please visit www.everisthealth.com