Dr Edward Leatham, Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic

Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic and Caristo Diagnostics Launch Employee Heart Wellness and Disease Prevention Program for UK Employers

Caristo’s AI technology predicts heart attack risk for employee wellness initiative from respected centre of excellence

OXFORD, England and SURREY, England , April 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic (SCVC), Southern England’s leading centre of excellence for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular and cancer issues, has partnered with Imaging provider VCL SURREY and Caristo Diagnostics, a leading cardiac disease diagnostics company, to offer the novel CaRi-Heart® AI technology to predict patients’ risk of developing potentially fatal coronary artery disease.

SCVC will provide the CaRi-Heart AI-based cardiac assessment as a central part of the organisations ‘s employee wellness initiative for UK employers. Designed to provide industry-leading preventative care for employees and directors, the programme includes a package of advanced health screening tests delivered in SCVC’s one-stop clinical diagnostic centre (CDC). In combination with the programme’s other tests, Cari-Heart provides the ability to predict future heart attacks and atherosclerosis many years before symptoms occur.

“It’s well known that the earlier a patient at risk from heart disease, cancer and other common medical conditions can be identified, the more effective the prevention strategies become – yet much of healthcare around us remains largely reactive, not proactive,” said Edward Leatham, MA Cantab, MBBS, MD, MRCP, director and founder of SCVC. “UK employers are eager for new options to keep their workers healthier longer, and we are excited to provide them our state-of-the-art health screening programme, featuring CaRi-Heart, the validated, individualised predictor of future cardiac events.”

An estimated 1 million adults in the UK present with chest pain every year¹. Many will undergo a coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scan to diagnose coronary artery disease caused by plaques that narrow or block the arteries that supply blood to the heart. However, three quarters of these patients undergoing CCTAs will display no clear sign of significant narrowing and would traditionally be seen as low risk of having a heart attack Yet, there are twice as many deaths or cardiac events in these “low risk” patients than in those identified as high-risk.² A primary cause of these events is coronary inflammation, a crucial risk factor previously unseen in routine CCTAs.

Now for the first time, coronary inflammation is detectable in routine CCTAs using Caristo’s CaRi-Heart technology. Based on research originated at the University of Oxford, CaRi-Heart is a pioneering AI technology that predicts heart attack risk by assessing coronary inflammation and integrating plaque and clinical risk factors such as cholesterol levels. The technology provides a non-invasive Fat Attenuation Index Score^TM (FAI-Score^TM) as a patented biomarker for coronary inflammation. Research studies have shown that an abnormal FAI-Score is associated with a 20-fold increased risk of fatal heart attack and 6 times higher risk for major adverse cardiac events (MACEs)². Based on the FAI-Score, CaRi-Heart predicts a patient’s absolute risk of a fatal cardiac event over the next 8-10 years.

“Early diagnosis and interventions have the potential to significantly improve health outcomes for thousands of patients at risk of coronary artery disease. We are pleased to announce our partnership with Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic and their imaging partner VCL Surrey to enhance accessibility to CaRi-Heart technology for employees throughout the UK,” said Frank Cheng, CEO of Caristo Diagnostics.

The CaRi-Heart technology is currently in clinical use in various NHS and private hospitals in the UK, as well as within the EU and Australia.

About Surrey Cardiovascular Clinic
SCVC was founded in 2006 by cardiologists Edward Leatham and Peter Clarkson, based on the concept that in the fast-moving area of cardiovascular medicine there needed to be an easily accessible centre of excellence in the South East of England, positioned outside hospitals. It brings together a multidisciplinary team of professionals and administration required for modern care.

About Virtual Cath Lab (VCL)
VCL was founded in 2019 by cardiologists Edward Leatham and Michael Hickman specifically to provide advanced one stop imaging solution to clinical diagnostic centres and remove barriers for clinicians to access world class imaging AI technology. VCLs first site is hosted by the Surrey Cardiovascular clinic in Guildford

¹ https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2024/january/act-on-mystery-chest-pain-to-reduce-risk-of-heart-attack
² – ORFAN data presented at American Heart Association Late Breaking Science Session 2023