AtCor Medical, which develops and markets products for the early detection of cardiovascular disease risk and management, said its noninvasive central blood pressure monitoring system SphygmoCor was equal to invasive monitoring in its ability to track changes in the stroke volume of the heart in response to therapy.

A prospective study compared noninvasive central blood pressure measurement using SphygmoCor with simultaneous invasive recording with an indwelling catheter in patients in shock who required volume expansion therapy.

According to AtCor Medical, the 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.

AtCor Medical president and CEO Duncan Ross said using noninvasive monitoring will reduce the risk to patients, as it offers hospitals the opportunity to save lives, reduce labor and supply costs, and avoid the expense of uncompensated care provided in treating hospital-acquired infections.

"Our technology, which was FDA cleared as substantially equivalent in performance to invasive monitoring catheters, clearly has a use when physicians require central pressure data, but believe the risks of invasive monitoring outweigh the benefits," Ross said.

"Because of the risk of bloodstream infection, we believe that physicians will choose a noninvasive alternative whenever possible. Since, for most patients, US hospitals are reimbursed through an all-encompassing diagnosis-related payment, coding and payer coverage issues do not raise the barriers to quick adoption that innovative medical technologies may face in the outpatient market."