Most men in Gary Thompson's family didn't make it to the age of 50. Heart disease was always the culprit, so when Thompson came up on his 50th birthday he undertook a wide assortment of tests. All his tests came back saying he was relatively in good shape. So six days after turning 50, he took part in the Los Angeles Marathon, and 20 miles into it he began having a heart attack.

Thompson survived the ordeal and went on a personal quest to find a better way to test for the presence of cardiovascular disease. After undergoing a new and experimental ultrasound like test at the University of California and having a visibly shaken clinician tell him that he had the thickest arteries that were in a living person, Thompson's initial quest was over and a new mission to bring this test to market had begun.

To do so he founded a company Medical Technologies International (MTI; Palm Desert, California) to bring the test, which is called ArterioVision, to the clinical arena. Thompson is now the chairman/CEO of the company.

ArterioVision had its roots in a test designed for NASA to detect the presence of ice on Mars. The technology was originally created at in 1966 to interpret images sent from space. That software, which was invented to process pictures from several missions, including the Voyagers and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, forms the foundation of the ArterioVision carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT test).

The repurposed software – is now used to measure the thickness or the edge of arteries in the human body.

"I think this is a disruptive technology and I mean that in a good way," Kelly Nardoni Senior Vice President of MTI told Medical Device Daily. "It's standard for us to test indicators such as cholesterol, blood pressure ... but I think this adds another tool for us to look at when determining the condition of a patient's heart. I don't think it replaces any of those other indicators, but rather it adds a new dimension to testing."

She noted that Thompson had been through nearly every kind of test and checked out to be fine, but when he had undergone testing through the ArterioVision test it immediately identified the diseased state of his arteries.

"I recognized the medical value of the technology immediately," Thompson said. "I knew there was no other test that could give doctors an early read on cardiovascular health." Thompson added that if a patient were "physically fit, with no visible symptoms, other cardiovascular tests may miss key risk."

The ArterioVision CIMT test uses ultrasound technology to measure the thickness of the first two layers of the carotid artery wall. The FDA-cleared procedure determines whether there has been a build-up of fats causing the wall to thicken. Wall thickening is the earliest noninvasive indicator of atherosclerosis – the underlying cause of heart attack and stroke. The test provides the "age" of a patient's arteries based on CIMT, compared to one's chronological age. ArterioVision is quick and painless, and does not expose patients to radiation.

"For instance it can tell you if you have arteries the age of an 80-year-old," Nardoni said. "It's a real wake up call to a lot of patients."

The test has been FDA cleared and there are plans to get clearance to market the test in Europe.

But perhaps one of the crowning achievements for the company is the fact that they are working with NASA again. The test is coming full circle, according to the company, and is poised to be used by NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) to help clarify and monitor the cardiovascular health of the Center's astronauts and trainees. NASA will use ArterioVision at JSC to monitor the cardiovascular health of astronauts as they train for flight missions. JSC hopes to use the ArterioVision test as a preventive medicine screening tool for its employees, as part of an integrated wellness exam aimed at keeping employees healthy, and thereby reducing costs from lost work days.

Omar Ford, 404-262-5546; omar.ford@ahcmedia.com