BIOMARKERS FOR ACUTE AORTIC DISSECTION

 

Market:  Acute aortic dissection is often fatal due to a lack of adequate diagnostic methods.  Patients present to the emergency room with complaints of chest pains.  After an examination fails to reveal a myocardial infarction, the patients are discharged from the emergency room. If an aortic dissection is left untreated, 33% of patients die within the first day, 50% die within the first two days, and after two weeks 75% of untreated patients die.  Imaging and invasive procedures can lead to an accurate diagnosis. However, performance of these procedures on a scale consistent with the numbers of patients presenting to the emergency room with chest pains is unobtainable in practice.  Therefore there is a strong need, and market, for a quick, reliable, easy to perform biomarker based diagnostic assay that will provide physicians and patients alike with an accurate assessment of a patient’s status with regard to aortic dissection.

 

The Technology:  The inventors have identified and validated a biomarker based diagnostic using blood that will be inexpensive, fast and can be administered on a scale consistent with the number of patients presenting to the ER with chest pains.  

 

 

NON-CONFIDENTIAL TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION

The preceding is intended to be a non-confidential summary of a novel technology created at the University of Texas Health Science center at Houston (UTHSCH), for which the University has obtained patent protection. 

UTHSCH Ref. No. 2004-0009

Inventors: Drs. Milewicz and Dubinsky

Patent Status: Pending

License Available: world-wide; exclusive or non-exclusive

 

To obtain further information about this technology, please contact:
Office of Technology Management, 7000 Fannin, Suite 720, Houston, TX 77030
Phone: (713) 500-3369  Fax: (713) 500-0331
Email: uthsch-otm@uth.tmc.edu