In an effort to identify heart-related risk factors for the Indian population, Apollo Hospitals and healthcare firm Abbott have come together to create a cardiac registry of sorts.

The two companies will collect heart health data of Apollo patients including troponin levels measured using Abbott’s blood test. The data will be used to map risk factors so patients could be alerted to make lifestyle changes and avert incidents such as a heart attack.

“Indians are getting heart diseases between 45 and 50 years of age, much earlier than their Western counterparts who have such incidents at about 60 years of age,” Dr K Hari Prasad, President, Hospitals Division, Apollo Hospitals, told BusinessLine , explaining the need to have India-specific risk factors and interventions.

Late last year, Abbott’s High Sensitive Troponin-I blood test received regulatory approvals in Europe for being able to accurately predict the chances of having a heart attack or a cardiac event, potentially months to years in advance in people who otherwise appear healthy. Apollo has been first off the block to adopt this technology.

The protein Troponin I is released when the heart muscles are stressed, and in the past, similar products have been used in emergency situations or in ICUs when a patient showed symptoms of a heart attack.

Abbott’s high-sensitive product has received approvals for a new indication where it picks up heart-attack signals in a seemingly healthy person.

Piloting with employees

In the pilot stage, data from about 18,000 employees from seven Apollo hospitals across the country was analysed to identify risk factors that could be used to predict heart diseases in future, Dr Prasad explained.

In the present venture, Apollo and Abbott will screen patients at Apollo and the data will be held in a registry that Dr Prasad hopes would expand to capturing data from more cardiac patients and hospitals in the long run.

The absence of a patient registry is often felt in the country, especially when there is an adverse event or recall involving a medical product, and doctors need to contact a patient to address the medical issue.

Data concerns

A key concern with registries involves the ownership of patient data and its use. Dr Jaganathan Sickan, Senior Associate Director with Abbott’s diagnostics business, explained that the anonymised data will be identifiable only to the physician treating the patient.

“No other member of Abbott or Apollo teams will have access to identifiable patient data,” he clarified.