A new study has confirmed the superiority of Deltex Medical Group plc’s (LON:DEMG) oesophageal Doppler monitoring (ODM) system over a commonly used alternative technology.
The study put Deltex’s CardioQ-ODM technology head-to-head with and an uncalibrated pulse pressure waveform analysis (PPWA) monitor that was originally developed at St Thomas's Hospital in London for intensive care use about 25 years ago.
In the study, conducted by doctors from St Thomas's Hospital, half the patients’ care was guided using ODM and in the other half PPWA. All patients were undergoing bowel surgery, 40% of them using so-called keyhole surgery, within a well-established enhanced recovery programme.
The study indicated a number of discrepancies between the two systems, with the PPWA device prompting a different intervention to that indicated by ODM 40% of the time, resulting in either too much or too little fluid being administered on each occasion.
Furthermore, 50% more PPWA patients required treatment with drugs that influence the tone and calibre of blood vessels.
On average, patients that had been under the ODM programme were able to get out of bed and move around one day sooner than the PPWA crowd, and went home two days earlier.
Prior to these results, there have been 13 studies using ODM during surgery with positive outcomes (i.e. either a statistically significant reduction in complications or length of stay or both) and eight trials using this particular PPWA device during surgery but no positive outcomes, Deltex told investors.
Ewan Phillips, Deltex’s chief executive officer, said that the results confirm the superiority of ODM over PPWA, and that “intra-operative fluid management, done properly, has a crucial role in determining optimal patient outcomes in modern enhanced recovery programmes” including keyhole surgical techniques.
"This is the second important new trial to be presented since we launched our new, easier to use, TruFlow probes in May. The first trial from Spain, the largest ever randomised controlled trial of ODM, showed significant reductions in both post-operative complications and length of hospital stay and this second study shows why all the key evidence in this field comes from use of ODM," he added.
More to follow ...