APN Health

Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States

Cardiovascular Disease

APN Health, LLC is a new medical device company that has developed proprietary and patented software algorithms to create an innovative and cost-effective 3D cardiac imaging system called Navik 3D. These algorithms are capable of using real-time 2D fluoroscopic image data to locate the precise 3D x-y-z location of cardiac catheters. This information is then incorporated with other integrated algorithms and a display screen to create 3D maps that can be used for catheter mapping and ablation of cardiac arrhythmias.APN Health's Navik 3D technology is driven by increasing global demand for heart rhythm disorder treatments in rapidly aging populations, which are expensive procedures. The current mapping systems capable of creating 3D cardiac maps can cost anywhere from $500,000 to $3 million. The disposable catheters required by these systems, which allow a cardiologist to locate and destroy the heart tissue that's causing the irregular beats, can cost more than $3,000 each.Jasbir Sra, a cardiac electrophysiologist with Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, set out in 2010 to find a less-expensive approach, hoping to make cardiac ablation procedures more widely available, particularly in the developing world.The Navik 3D system creates 3D maps of a heart chamber using basic patient monitoring and fluoroscopic imaging systems, which already exist in hospital catheter labs, at a fraction of the cost of other mapping products.Future product expansion for APN Health includes the inevitable and planned extension of this technology for use in other procedures requiring 3D imaging, in areas such as orthopedics, neurosurgery, interventional radiology and cardiology.