With a growing incidence, cardiovascular diseases affect over 125 million patients globally every year, and are the leading cause of death in developed countries. PERSUASIVE dx’ current focus lies on early diagnosis of chronic coronary syndrome (CCS), previously named Stable Angina, in a primary care setting. 

A common symptom of CCS patients is transient chest pain, which unfortunately is a very aspecific symptom, leading to difficulties in identifying the true underlying pathology in chest pain patients. Consequently many patients get referred to hospital unnecessarily at high cost to both patients and the healthcare system. Due to this inefficient early diagnosis of CCS, there is a great need for improved early diagnostic solutions. 

PERSUASIVE dx works on a novel extracellular vesicle (EV) protein biomarker signature that can identify CCS in chest pain patients early. Meaning that by identifying CCS prior to hospital referral, the diagnostic efficiency of these patients is greatly improved. 

Many patients present to primary care with chest pain or atypical symptoms such as shortness of breath, reduced exercise tolerance, which can point to CCS. CCS is a serious pathology that can lead to a heart attack and subsequent death, so early recognition of CCS is of utmost importance for patients. 

Chest pain is very common and the reason for 4% of all primary care visits. When referred to the hospital >80% of these patients turn out to not have CCS. This results in a tremendous burden on the health care system with respect to patient management, efficiency and costs. 

An early diagnostic test for identifying CCS patients in a primary care setting is lacking, and PERSUASIVE dx is taking up the challenge to develop this solution.

A simple blood test that can identify the chest-pain patients with CCS from patients that have chest pain due to non-cardiac causes will be a tremendous step forward. Cardiologists and scientists of the UMC Utrecht (UMCU) have discovered that an EV protein signature can identify CCS patients in a primary care setting. This patented biomarker signature will be developed as a new diagnostic test.

Results to date indicate that the current blood test, based on a patented EV protein biomarker signature, could identify especially female patients with stable angina. A male EV protein signature has also been identified and patented, and is currently being validated. 

PERSUASIVE dx has raised substantial funding from various sources and has established a high-throughput, fully automated EV isolation workflow. This workflow is used to purify EVs from liquid biopsies, allowing for subsequent quantification of EV-associated biomarkers. Our current two-step process is well-suited for liquid biopsy-based EV studies across various disease areas.