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Making gains with back pain

SpineMatrix spinal imager pinpoints problems

By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer

Published on Sunday, May 25, 2008

After nearly a decade of required clinical trials, the courting of investors and the jumping through government hoops, the new Lumbar Matrix Scan will ship out to about 35 hospitals and clinics around the country in the next 12 months.

SpineMatrix, the company behind the invention of Wooster physician Dr. Mark Finneran, is ramping up production of the chronic back pain detection system inside the Akron Global Business Accelerator.

''We're already scheduling training in many places,'' Chief Executive Officer Ben Shappley said.

Until now, trying to figure out whether a
patient's pain is caused by a muscle, disc or joint problem was largely a guessing game, with X-rays, MRIs and CT scans all having limitations.

In many cases, physicians resort to more drastic techniques, involving the use of long needles injected into the spine to try to pinpoint the origin.

But the matrix scan uses computerized censors embedded in a gel on electrodes that adhere to a patient's back, issuing a color-coded report in a painless procedure that takes 15 minutes in a doctor's office.

''The diagnosis is based on what your blood vessels and muscles are doing or not doing,'' operations manager Whit Miller said.

The system — currently in place at Bath Township's Crystal Clinic — was tested by the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio State University College of Medicine and Texas Back Institute.

In clinical trials involving nearly 3,000 people, it correctly diagnosed the problem:

• 99.6 percent of the time when it said the problem was related to muscles;

• 95 percent of the time when it identified the culprit as a facet (the joint of a vertebrae);

• 88 percent of the time when it determined a bad disc was to blame.

By eliminating invasive techniques, the spinal imager could also significantly reduce health costs — no small thing in a country where 30 million suffering Americans have made back pain the No. 2 reason for doctor visits.

SpineMatrix, headquartered in Copley Township, recently launched its manufacturing arm in the Akron Global Business Accelerator.

Where the company once thought it would outsource the assembly of the system, Miller said, ''we decided we like the idea of controlling it ourselves.''

 

Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.

 

After nearly a decade of required clinical trials, the courting of investors and the jumping through government hoops, the new Lumbar Matrix Scan will ship out to about 35 hospitals and clinics around the country in the next 12 months.

Get the full article here.


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