Cardiologs is using Holter recordings instead of ECGs to catch more cases of AFib

Cardiologs, a company that uses ECG data to detect potential cardiac arrhythmias, is developing a new way to predict atrial fibrillation.

On Tuesday, the European Heart Journal – Digital Health published a study that tested Cardiologs’ new algorithm. The study, which was sponsored by the Paris-based company, found that the model can accurately predict the near-term presence or absence of AFib using only the first 24 hours of a Holter device recording.

Founded in 2014, Cardiologs offers a device-agnostic software platform for cardiac arrhythmia detection. The platform is FDA-approved to screen for AFib and other arrhythmias as an aid to physicians, not a standalone device.

The company develops its software using cardiologist-uploaded data from a variety of devices, including Holter monitors, smartwatches and ECG patches. Last November, Philips announced that it was expanding its portfolio of cardiac solutions for hospital and ambulatory settings by acquiring Cardiologs.

Dr. Jagmeet Singh, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, led the company’s newest study. He and his team collected and de-identified Holter recordings from six independent diagnostic testing facilities in the U.S., European Union, India, South Africa, and United Kingdom. They identified a training set of recordings, each lasting 7 to 15 days, in which no AFib could be detected in the first 24 hours.

Using the first 24 hours of these recordings, the research team trained their algorithm to predict the presence or absence of AFib in the 15 following days. Using an external dataset not used during its development, they tested the algorithm and found it could predict whether AFib would occur in the near future with an area under the receiver operating curve, sensitivity, and specificity of 79.4%, 76%, and 69%, respectively. The study also found that the model outperformed those that used 12-lead ECGs to predict near-term AFib.

Original Article: (https://medcitynews.com/2022/06/cardiologs-is-using-holter-recordings-instead-of-ecgs-to-catch-more-cases-of-afib/)