The interim results of an ongoing clinical study of PatenSee’s contactless imaging device for the early detection of vascular access stenosis in dialysis patients were recently shared in a poster presentation at the World Congress of Nephrology (WCN’22; 24–27 February, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). The presentation, titled “First clinical experience with non-invasive, contactless, optical surveillance of vascular access”, was delivered by the study’s principal investigator, Benaya Rozen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel).
A blocked vascular access can cause various complications, including loss of the arteriovenous fistula (AVF) and death, a PatenSee press release states. The goal is to detect initial clogging before it leads to an unwanted patient outcome, but ongoing physical monitoring by the medical team is a major challenge. PatenSee’s imaging technology is designed to perform quick, high-quality monitoring without any physical contact with the patient, thus reducing the risk of infection.
Thirty-six dialysis patients participated in more than 600 sessions collectively at Rabin Medical Center in Israel to test the efficacy and timeliness of PatenSee’s imaging device.
Imaging took approximately two minutes and was performed during the waiting time prior to the dialysis sessions. A comparison to a Doppler ultrasound done by a technician blinded to the results of PatenSee’s device demonstrated a good correlation, suggesting that this rapid, contactless, machine learning-based imaging device could serve as an effective tool for automated AVF surveillance, the release adds.
“Surveillance of the AVF by inspection and clinical examination is a challenging task and many times is not performed adequately. As a result, early stenosis is frequently not detected in a timely manner, which leads to access loss and the need for potentially harmful temporary catheters. The interim results of the current clinical study show that PatenSee’s imaging device has the potential to fix this problem. More research is required to evaluate the system as a predictor of AVF stenosis,” said Rozen-Zvi.
