BOTHELL, Wash., Nov. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Quinton Cardiology Systems, Inc. , a global leader in advanced cardiology products, announced today that it has started shipping the Q-Stress(R) version 3.5 cardiac stress testing system. Q-Stress is an award winning, market leading cardiac stress testing system.
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This latest software version delivers substantial clinical and ease-of-use advantages, while providing clinicians with advanced cardiac analysis tools. Among its major enhancements are FreezeFrame, a state-of-the-art analysis tool and Cardiac Risk Scoring, a feature using standardized scoring metrics. The new software also includes post-procedure ECG analysis and significantly enhanced reporting and graphics tools.
Cardiac Risk Scoring uses clinical and patient demographic information to help predict the likelihood of future heart attacks. Cardiac Risk Scoring provides a comparison between a patient's performance and widely accepted standards, such as those established by Duke University Medical Center and the Framingham Study. "We find the risk scoring tools on the Quinton Q-Stress a real benefit. The integration of the risk scoring has led to more cost effective investigations of our cardiac patients and a better understanding of risk assessment in our community," said Dr. James Swan of Toronto, Canada.
FreezeFrame allows clinicians to perform in-test ECG analysis by continuously storing and displaying vital information for careful study and archiving during the test. "FreezeFrame is very important clinically...I can quickly review the entire test up to the last few seconds for anything indicative of cardiac weakness," stated Ken Mills, Director of Non-Invasive Cardiology at Evergreen & Overlake Hospitals in Kirkland, Washington.
The overall importance of exercise stress testing was recently re-affirmed by a new study in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation. According to the Circulation study, "among symptom-free men with several risk factors for heart disease, poor performance on an exercise treadmill test more than doubled the risk for a heart attack or other coronary disease event." By incorporating risk-scoring tools, Q-Stress version 3.5 now provides clinicians with significantly more predictive capability to determine which patients are at risk for heart attack. Wider use of non-invasive stress testing to determine patient risk levels could lead to earlier detection and treatment of coronary disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
About Quinton Cardiology Systems:
Quinton develops, manufactures, markets, and services a family of advanced cardiology products used in the diagnosis, monitoring and management of patients with cardiovascular disease. Quinton markets its products under the Quinton and Burdick brand names. Quinton shares are quoted on the Nasdaq National Market under the trading symbol "QUIN." For more information, visit the Quinton web site at http://www.quinton.com/ or contact Quinton at 800-426-0337.
Contact: Mike Matysik Senior vice president & chief financial officer 425-402-2009
Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040715/SEQUINTONCARDLOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.comQuinton Cardiology Systems, Inc.CONTACT: Mike Matysik, Senior vice president & chief financial officerof Quinton Cardiology Systems, Inc., +1-425-402-2009
Web site: http://www.quinton.com/