MCCULLOCH RESEARCH LAB
Arrhythmia Mapping Technology Demonstrates Positive Clinical Results
Bioengineers and cardiologists from the University of California San Diego invented a technology that can accurately and noninvasively map atrial and ventricular heart arrhythmias in a matter of minutes. The technology, developed by Vektor Medical Inc., a company co-founded by UC San Diego faculty, demonstrated 97.3 percent accuracy in a clinical validation study, and recently received FDA clearance.
Instead of sending a catheter into a patient’s heart to localize the source of the arrhythmia, the new vMap technology requires only data from a standard noninvasive 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) – performed in most clinical and ambulatory settings – to create a three-dimensional interactive map of arrhythmia source locations in all four chambers of the heart.
The researchers used computational modeling to create over one million simulations of different heart arrhythmias. The patient’s ECG recordings are compared to this simulation database to accurately locate the source of the arrhythmia.
vMap was invented by bioengineers and cardiologists from UC San Diego, and has been developed by Vektor Medical, a startup co-founded by Professor of Bioengineering, Andrew McCulloch; Professor of Medicine and electrophysiologist, Dr. David Krummen; Assistant Professor of Medicine, electrophysiologist, and bioengineering alumnus, Dr. Gordon Ho; and bioengineering alumnus Dr. Christopher Villongco, Vektor’s chief technology officer. The Vektor Medical team presented their clinical trial results at the Heart Rhythm Society meeting in San Francisco.