Use of a Computerized Body Auscultation Device (©VoqX) for the Diagnosis of Structural Cardiac Pathologies

In the current study the plan is to recruit 600 patients who have been referred to the echocardiogram laboratory for routine clinically indicated echocardiography, or to the cardiac catheterization laboratory for routine clinically indicated catheterization procedures. Individuals with normal heart structure and sounds, isolated aortic stenosis (of varying severity), and isolated mitral regurgitation (of varying severity) will be included, while excluding individuals who have multiple valve involvements or combined valve pathologies. Each patient will have baseline testing using the ©CompuSteth device, which will be used to auscultate and record each patient's heart sounds at the bedside prior to the index echocardiogram or cardiac catheterization procedure. This process will take less than 10 minutes and is outlined below. Patients will then proceed with their clinically indicated echocardiograms or cardiac catheterization procedures.

Amongst the first 200 study participants, the results of the echocardiograms and invasive cardiac catheterization procedures will be used to train the ©VoqX device to identify normal heart and to screen and grade for various cardiac structural pathologies, aortic stenosis, and mitral regurgitation, diagnosed by gold-standard testing. Subsequently, after the ©VoqX device has been trained how to characterize and identify sounds that correspond to various structural cardiac pathologies, the next step is to prospectively 'test' how well the ©VoqX device is able to screen normal heart from cardiac pathologies, such as aortic stenosis, and mitral regurgitation, and identify the severity of the valve disorder in the subsequent 200 participants of the study. This will be done by comparing the results obtained from auscultation with the ©VoqX device against the results obtained from gold-standard testing with echocardiography or invasive cardiac catheterization.