Cardiologists have designed a ‘heart attack alarm’ which warns wearers of the impending event with beeps or vibrations.
Many heart attack victims do not have classic early warning signs like intense chest pain, or sweating, and experience nothing more than mild discomfort. Others ignore the signs or recognise them too late.
The result is that it is often hours before they seek medical help.
For some, that delay is fatal.
The inventors of the AngelMed Guardian System hope the device will cut the death rate from heart attacks by a quarter, by alerting the wearer as soon as possible.
This will enable them to get to the hospital perhaps two hours sooner than they would have done, reducing the chance of death and preserving heart muscle.
It works by picking up subtle changes to the electrical signals produced by the heart, when one of the organ’s major arteries is at imminent risk of being obstructed by a clot.
Dr Robert Wlodarczyk, a cardiologist at the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare in California, the principal investigator of the ALERTS trial, said: “This device alerts you as soon as any evidence of mycardial ischaemia or heart attack begins, this giving you precious minutes to hours to get to a doctor and get help.
“For every 30 minutes that you wait, because you don’t know you’re having a heart attack, your death rate increases by 7.5 percent.
“This device is designed to cut that time and possibly save 25 to 30 per cent more lives.”
About the size of an old-style pager, it is implanted just under the skin below the collar bone.
It can alert the wearer to a potentially serious problem, in which case they should see a doctor in 48 hours, or that an attack is just about to happen, in which case they should get straight to hospital.
It can also be made to either beep or vibrate, depending on preference, like a mobile phone.
Small scale trials in people are now underway in the US. It has received CE mark approval for sale in Europe, but is not currently available on the NHS. It is likely to cost at least € 10,000.
Due to the expense and the fact that surgery is needed to implant it, they are likely to be reserved for those who have either already had a heart attack or are judged to be at extremely high risk of a first one. About 100,000 people have a heart attack in England every year, of whom about one in eight die within 30 days.
However, the British Heart Foundation estimates there are about 1.5 million people living in Britain who have suffered heart attacks.
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