Fractional Flow Reserve Market
Fractional flow reserve (FFR) is a technique used in coronary catheterization to measure pressure differences across a coronary artery stenosis (narrowing, usually due to atherosclerosis) to determine the likelihood that the stenosis impedes oxygen delivery to the heart muscle (myocardial ischemia). FFR is a novel and potentially clinically useful mathematical solution for estimation of stenotic coronary artery atherosclerosis. Reliability/collaborative measurement between capable laboratories in measuring this essential metric appears muddled in a proprietary race to claim cardiac mathematics dedicated to risk in ischemic cardiac disease. Proprietary claims of cardiac mathematics have not been previously argued in patent law. Fractional flow reserve is defined as the pressure after (distal to) a stenosis relative to the pressure before the stenosis. The result is an absolute number; an FFR of 0.80 means that a given stenosis causes a 20% drop in blood pressure. In other words, F...