While Cardiovascular Device Update has been published since 1996, its sister publication, Biomedical Business & Technology and its predecessor newsletter, began publication in 1977, and we retain issues beginning in 1983. The April 16, 1983, issue of BIOMEDICAL BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL provides an overview — and comparative look — at that year’s American College of Cardiology meeting, and we here provide verbatim excerpts from that report.

“Ambulatory ECG monitoring was one of the major topics at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting (New Orleans, La., March 20-24) in which over 10,000 physicians and some 300 exhibitors participated. No less than three new companies introduced complete simultaneous dual channel systems.

ZYMED (Camarrilo, Calif.) showed a real time digital system that sells for approximately $50,000 with recorders costing some $2,000 each. The scanner comprises an arrhythmia reporter generator which permits detailed analysis of the morphological and rhythm abnormalities. . . .

DIAGNOSTIC MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS (DMI, East Syracuse, N.Y.) displayed the Eclipse Holter system — the first of several monitoring devices to be introduced over the next year. . . . The Eclipse provides full disclosure annotated reports for both channels of the 24-hour tape. Such reports detail episodes of severe arrhythmias; maximum and minimum episodes by category; full scale ECG printouts; multiple graphs and tables including S-T analysis, heart rate, hourly activity by category and data summaries. The $20,000 analyser has a one Mega-bite random access capability; recorders will sell for $2,000 each . . .

Also HOLTA-MED (Tustin, Calif.) came out with a two-channel simultaneous full disclosure system, competitively priced at $22,500. . . .

Major growth will occur in the digital real-time programmable ECG analysis where system prices range from $10,000 to $80,000. They not only eliminate the operator as a potential source of error but also offer reporting capability. These systems lack, however, a continuous 24 hour ECG recording, still a major drawback. The physician’s confidence in the real-time ECG analysis is increasing. Expectation is that by 1985 these analyzers will outsell the more conventional Holter scan-ners/recorders. . . .

Other forms of ambulatory monitoring are still in their infancy. About 11% of the population suffers yet from hypertension. There is a growing belief that single casual measurement of blood pressure is inadequate to diagnose the severity of this disease. Consequently firms like DEL MAR AVIONICS, REMLER, OXFORD MEDICAL SYSTEMS (U.K.) and recently, INSTRUMENTS FOR CARDIAC RESEARCH . . . have entered this market. However, all current systems are judged inconvenient for the patient and are too easily affected by artifacts. Systems that use finger cuffs such as recently introduced by UEDA for non-ambulatory purposes may be the answer. . . .

New products and developments at the ACC reflect an accelerating interest in noninvasive screening for asymptomatic coronary artery disease. A number of methods ranging from electrocardiographic/exercise test to serum lipid screening and cardiokymography (CARDIOKINETICS, Seattle, Wash.) are practiced. Gaining rapid recognition is OCG TECHNOLOGY’S (New York, N.Y.) Cardiointegraph ($10,000) which detects subtle abnormalities in the cardiac elecrogram before these become apparent on the standard 12-lead ECG.

Three major medical institutions studying the Cardiointegraph in patients with chest pain having normal resting ECGs reported encouraging results in obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) detection; approximately 90% for three vessel CAD and over 65% for one vessel disease. Recent papers report an even higher success rate - indicating the Cardiointegraph test ($100) may have equal diagnostic value as the Thallium coronary perfusion scan ($750) per procedure in the U.S.). OCG has shipped about 50 units to date, including some upgraded models built in its new plant. . . .

INSTROMEDIX (Beaverton, Ore.) introduced a transtelephonic 12-lead ECG system capable of transmitting and receiving electrocardiograms from one ECG machine to another. . . . BIOMED (Irvine, Calif.) released a noninvasive bioimpedance converter that, via wave form registration, can determine ventricular ejection time, pre-ejection period, heart rate and maximum rate of impedance change (an index of contractility).

CARDIO-PACE MEDICAL (St. Paul, Minnesota), the continuation of heart valve maker ST. JUDE MEDICAL’s ACC. The company is manufacturing a rather small (47g) conventional demand (VVI) pacer that can be programmed for rate, refractory period and modality (VOO) . . . .

PHILIPS ULTRASOUND displayed the SDU 3000 series imaging systems that offer real-time, servo-sector, linear array, cardiac, Doppler, and static B-scan capabilities.