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Insurers Now Using Noninvasive Central Blood Pressure in Medical Evaluations

^{Published on 2011-04-07 06:11:02 - Market Wire}
 

ITASCA, IL--(Marketwire - April 7, 2011) - AtCor Medical (ASX: [ ACG ]), the developer and marketer of the SphygmoCor® system, which measures central blood pressures and arterial stiffness noninvasively, today announced that it had signed an agreement with Sonic Healthcare's Lifescreen division to supply SphygmoCor systems for use in Lifescreen health evaluation service, which is used by insurance companies to determine risk for insurance policies. This will be the first time the insurance industry has included central blood pressure testing in its medical evaluations.

Lifescreen provides customized health evaluation services for insurance professionals and their clients. It is part of the Sonic Healthcare Group, which is one of the world's largest diagnostics companies.

An advance on stress testing: assessing the effective age of the arteries

Dr. John Clubb, immediate past president of the Australia New Zealand Insurance Medicine Association and Chief Medical Officer, Tower Australia said, "SphygmoCor's applanation tonometry test for central blood pressure measurement allows insurance companies to assess cardiovascular risk in healthy patients. This is an advance on exercise stress testing as stress ECG cannot detect underlying issues in healthy patients. SphygmoCor provides information about the effective age of a patient's arteries that can be used to more accurately determine risk for insurance policies."

"Study after study has shown that central blood pressure is a superior predictor of cardiovascular events and of mortality," said Duncan Ross, AtCor Medical President and CEO. "We are delighted to partner with Sonic Healthcare, a global diagnostics leader, in offering SphygmoCor assessment as an element of its Lifescreen test for insurance applicants, an industry first. AtCor's primary focus is on technology that enables early diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease and on supporting noninvasive central pressure assessment in pharmaceutical clinical trials. This represents a new market opportunity for us; we look forward to working with Sonic's Lifescreen division to drive adoption of the test."

About AtCor Medical

AtCor Medical develops and markets products for the early detection of cardiovascular disk and management of cardiovascular disease. Its technology allows researchers and clinicians to measure central blood pressure noninvasively. The company's SphygmoCor system visibly identifies the effects of reflected blood pressure in the central aortic pressure wave, effects which cannot be detected with standard blood pressure monitoring. More than 2,500 SphygmoCor systems are currently in use worldwide at major medical centers, research institutions, in physicians' offices and in pharmaceutical clinical trials. The company's technology has been featured in over 400 studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals. AtCor has operations in Australia, the United States and Europe. For further information, please visit our web site at [ www.atcormedical.com ].