September 14, 2007 - Boston Scientific Corp. released data reflecting experience from the first 15,000 patients monitored wirelessly on the LATITUDE Patient Management System, a device that detects clinical events between scheduled follow-up visits and then sends the clinical event data directly to physicians, enabling clinicians to observe these events sooner.
The device, available as an optional component to the LATITUDE Patient Management system, is a wireless weight scale and blood pressure cuff, which is aligned with the ACC/AHA physician society guidelines that recommend monitoring weight and blood pressure.
This event data reportedly represents the industry’s largest experience with wireless remote monitoring of implantable cardiac devices. Of the nearly 106,000 monitoring months included in the 15,000-patient population, over a mean follow-up of seven months, the LATITUDE Patient Management system detected 948 patients with at least one event of sustained atrial arrhythmia for more than 24 hours. Patients with atrial fibrillation, particularly those with heart failure, are at risk of stroke. By identifying this arrhythmia earlier, physicians can intervene with treatments to lessen this risk. The LATITUDE Patient Management system also detected 1,516 patients who received at least one event of shock therapy for potentially life threatening arrhythmias.
Virtually all Boston Scientific ICD and CRT-D patients are eligible to be enrolled on LATITUDE. To date, more than 60,000 patients are enrolled on the system at more than 1,300 clinics across the United States.
For more information: www.bostonscientific.com