Germany’s Biotronik is rolling out a smartphone-like device in Japan designed to transmit data to physicians from its pacemakers and defibrillators, including the Iforia line of MRI-safe implants it’s rolling out in the Land of the Rising Sun.
A European roll-out of the CardioMessenger Smart 3G device will follow through the remainder of 2015, Berlin-based Biotronik said.
CardioMessenger Smart 3G comes with a rechargeable internal battery, allowing patients to carry it around like a mobile phone, Biotronik said. It’s designed to allow physicians to manage data from patients’ implantable pacemakers and defibrillators, transmitted via the company’s home monitoring system.
Data presented at the annual Heart Rhythm Society meeting this month showed fewer hospitalizations, shorter hospital stays and significantly lower costs for patients whose cardiac rhythm management device are equipped with remote monitoring capabilities. The news prompted the society to issue new guidelines recommending that remote cardiac monitoring become the standard of care for CRM patients.
"With the launch of the CardioMessenger Smart in Japan, more patients will have the peace of mind knowing that they can take this technology with them at anytime and anywhere," Jeffrey Annis, managing director of Biotronik Japan, said in prepared remarks. "Cardiac device patients and physicians have long expressed a clear need for devices that are safe to undergo MRI scans. We have been answering this call by producing the world’s largest portfolio of ProMRI devices. They also come with Biotronik home monitoring, which was demonstrated in the In-Time trial to reduce mortality by more than 50% . We are proud that these excellent devices are now available in Japan: a country that embraces sophisticated and beneficial technology," Annis said in a prepared statement.
Biotronik also announced the release in Japan of its Iforia 7 DR-T and VR-T DF4 MRI-safe implantable cardiac defibrillators, which can use the CardioMessenger home monitoring technology. The Iforia ProMRI ICD passed a safety mark in a 170-patient study presented at HRS 2015.