University of Maryland Newsdesk.
www.newsdesk.umd.edu
For Immediate Release
October 21, 2008
Contacts: Millree Williams, 301 405 4621 or millree@umd.edu
Fischell Lecture to Show New Heart Attack Detection Device
Dr. Robert E. Fischell, the noted inventor of medical devices such as stents, pacemakers and implantable heart defibrillators, has invented a new, potentially life-saving heart device, the AngelMed Guardian. He will use the occasion of the Fischell Lecture to discuss and demonstrate this new life-saving device. Fischell will be accompanied by a patient whose life was saved using the Guardian.
Dr. Fischell's Invention.
In the past, the time it takes from when a patient recognizes some symptoms of a heart attack until he/she arrives at an emergency room and is treated in the catheterization laboratory takes about 5-6 hours. At about 2 hours, the heart muscle starts to die and by about 3-4 hours, that damage becomes permanent. Research has demonstrated that there is an increase of approximately 7 percent in the death rate for every 30 minutes that patient treatment is delayed.
The AngelMed Guardian is a new computer-controlled sensor that is implanted under the skin of a patient's chest like a pacemaker with a wire that senses the occurrence of an impending heart attack before there is any noticeable symptom. Since 1999, 20 patients in Brazil and 17 in the USA have had the device implanted and, of those, four lives have already been saved by an early warning from the Guardian. In July 2008, the FDA approved the pivotal clinical trial in the United States, and the device could go on sale in the USA as early as mid-2010. It is already being sold commercially in Brazil.
Through his invention of life-saving medical devices, Robert Fischell has saved or improved the lives of millions of people. In 2005, he donated $30 million to the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering so that future generations of Maryland bioengineers can follow in his footsteps.
His gift, one of the three largest ever received by the university, established the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices in the Clark School. The Fischell Department of Bioengineering is the university's first named academic department. The Fischell Lecture is sponsored by the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
Click here (http://www.bioe.umd.edu) for details on the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, in the A. James Clark School of Engineering.
Horvitz Lecture Hall, Room 1115, University of Maryland Computer Science Instructional Center, College Park, MD
This event is free and open to the public.
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