Physicians Use Cardioscan To Evaluate Student Athletes During Sports Physicals

Princeton, NJ - Zargis Medical Corp., a spin-off from Siemens Corporate Research and a majority-owned subsidiary of Speedus Corp. recently announced that Cardioscan is being used at the middle and high schools in Long Branch, New Jersey to evaluate student athletes during preparticipation sports physicals.

The Cardioscan evaluation is being undertaken in conjunction with The Children's Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, which provides school physicians for the district. The school nurses for the district have been actively administering Cardioscan to athletes and the results are being interpreted by physicians. Following the conclusion of the program, which will involve nearly 800 students over the next 12 months, the Center's Director of Pediatric Inpatient Services, Dr. Richard DeGroote, and Dr. Rhea Salonga, will interpret the findings and intend to submit the results for publication.

According to Dr. DeGroote, "There is clearly a need for a cost-effective screening method which could be an adjunct to the preparticipation sports physical exam in the early identification of certain potentially lethal cardiovascular abnormalities in young athletes. Although rare, the death of a young athlete from a previously undetected cardiovascular abnormality (an event commonly referred to as Sudden Cardiac Death or "SCD") is a tragedy that impacts an entire community and receives a great deal of media attention. I am very pleased that the Long Branch school district is the first school in the country to incorporate Cardioscan into student physicals."

According to Zargis CEO John Kallassy, "Our Cardioscan device could be a cost effective addition to any school system's sports preparticipation screening program. As a result, we believe that Cardioscan could one day become a standard of care in pre-sports physicals in physicians' offices or at the more than 26,000 secondary schools in the U.S. as well as in school systems in numerous overseas markets."

As part of the evaluation protocol, the entire nursing team for the Long Branch district, led by head nurse Kathy Celli, has undergone training in the use of Cardioscan.

SOURCE: Zargis Medical Corp.