A study at Yale University has found that a portable MRI made by a Guilford company can identify bleeding in the brain associated with strokes.
Stroke patients can be given clot-busting drugs that can improve outcomes, but there’s a small window of time for successful intervention, and the medicine isn’t safe for patients with bleeding in the brain.
The American Heart Association’s guidelines for stroke management recommend that all patients receive rapid brain imaging when they arrive at the hospital, to rule out a bleed.
The Yale study, which was published Aug. 25 in the journal Nature Communications, found the Swoop portable MRI developed by Guilford’s Hyperfine Research Inc. could give doctors access to this life-saving information sooner.
With conventional MRI, doctors must transport patients, including those who are critical, to a special MRI suite to obtain the brain images.
But Hyperfine’s compact machine can be rolled up to a patient’s bedside, plugs into a standard wall outlet and is operated with a tablet.
The study analyzed brain scans from 144 critically ill patients, comparing portable MRI scans to those done by conventional imaging systems. The portable MRI correctly detected a brain bleed 80% of the time, the study found.
“There is no question this device can help save lives in resource-limited settings, such as rural hospitals or developing countries,” study co-author Dr. Kevin Sheth, a neurology and neurosurgery professor at Yale School of Medicine, said in a statement.
The research was funded primarily by the American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health and Hyperfine Research, according to a Yale press release. Researchers from Hyperfine also contributed to the paper.
Yale said the study is the first to validate the appearance and clinical implications of a brain hemorrhage using a portable MRI device.
Hyperfine is set to go public during the fourth quarter of this year via a SPAC merger valued at $580 million. Serial medtech entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg founded the company in 2014 at his 4Catalyzer life sciences incubator in Guilford.
Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com
