ArteryFlow Launches Three Innovative Products for Cerebrovascular and Cardiovascular Functional Assessment Platform, Gaining Endorsement from Leading Experts

In just four years since its establishment, the company has launched four products. ArteryFlow Technology continues to accelerate in the field of AI-assisted diagnosis of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, driving precision medicine forward.

On May 28, ArteryFlow Technology held the launch event for its cardiovascular and cerebrovascular functional assessment platform at the 15th Oriental Cardiology Conference (OCC 2021).ArteryFlow Technology has launched its independently developed AneuFlow® auxiliary diagnostic system for cerebral aneurysms, the AccuCT® non-invasive coronary functional analysis system based on coronary CTA, and the AccuAngio® non-invasive functional assessment and analysis system based on coronary angiography.

Professor Ge Junbo, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and founder of the China Cardiovascular Physicians Innovation Club (CCI); Professor Wang Jian’an, Party Secretary of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine; Professor Liu Jianmin, Department of Neurosurgery, Changhai Hospital Affiliated to the Second Military Medical University; Professor Jiang Weijian, Vice President of the General Hospital of the Rocket Force; Professor Shen Li, Department of Cardiology, Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University; and Professor Chen Guangli, Department of Cardiology, Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, all attended the press conference.

“Our products’ journey from R&D to commercialization would not have been possible without the support of CCI.” Dr. Xiang Jianping, founder of ArteryFlow Technology, was a participant in the fourth cohort of the CCI program. Having previously studied and worked abroad in the field of intracranial medicine, he leveraged his accumulated expertise in hemodynamics and intracranial vascular interventional consumables to establish this cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease diagnosis and treatment company upon returning to China. Expanding from cerebrovascular products to cardiovascular solutions, ArteryFlow Technology’s development trajectory aligns perfectly with the launch event’s theme: “Intelligent Integration of Heart and Brain.”

From left to right: Dr. Xiang Jianping, Prof. Jiang Weijian, Prof. Wang Jian’an, Academician Ge Junbo, Prof. Liu Jianmin, and Prof. Shen Li

Academician Ge Junbo once said that medicine is the serendipity within inevitability, and Xiang Jianping is dedicated to seeking accidental breakthroughs amidst the inevitable accumulation of medical knowledge.

Since the company's establishment,ArteryFlow Technology has established three major product lines focused on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases: Cardiovascular Disease Solutions, Cerebrovascular Disease Solutions, and the ArteryFlow Cloud Platform, offering a comprehensive suite of products that includes screening, diagnosis, and surgical planning.

Coronary angiography is the “gold standard” for diagnosing coronary heart disease (CHD), while coronary CT angiography (CTA) serves as another non-invasive screening method for CHD, albeit with relatively lower accuracy. However, both techniques only provide imaging-based assessment of the degree of coronary stenosis and cannot determine whether functionally significant ischemia is present. Physicians must rely on their clinical experience to decide whether a patient requires interventional therapy.

According to clinical data from Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, only one-third of patients require interventional surgery after undergoing coronary angiography. For patients who do not need stent implantation, invasive coronary angiography undoubtedly poses an additional burden.

The emergence of fractional flow reserve (FFR) has addressed the limitations in functional assessment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Currently, FFR has become an internationally recognized functional indicator for coronary artery stenosis. Traditional FFR measurement requires the administration of vasodilators into the body and data acquisition via a pressure guidewire. This invasive approach increases the risk of procedural complications for patients, while the additional use of pressure guidewires also raises medical costs. Consequently, both physicians and patients continue to seek non-invasive solutions.

“FFR is currently gaining strong momentum and may become standard equipment in most catheterization laboratories in the future. However, it also presents certain operational complexities, and its development is likely to shift toward non-invasive or more convenient approaches.” Attending experts stated that non-invasiveness will be the future direction of FFR.

To enable patients to truly benefit from comfortable medical care by achieving non-invasiveness alongside precise diagnosis, ArteryFlow Technology has proposed a solution centered on “function first.” By leveraging technologies such as computational fluid dynamics simulation, image processing, and deep learning, ArteryFlow Technology provides a comprehensive solution for the functional assessment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

ArteryFlow Technology’s AccuFFR series utilizes artificial intelligence algorithms to replace the invasive process of pressure wire insertion into blood vessels, achieving non-invasive and precise results.“Functionality first, ArteryFlow Technology's products aim to find the most suitable patients for doctors, classify them, and determine which patients require interventional treatment and which can be managed with medication temporarily.”Professor Jiang Weijian believes that ArteryFlow Technology’s products will better address the clinical needs of physicians and patients, assisting less experienced doctors in determining whether interventional therapy is necessary. This not only alleviates patient suffering but also reduces the psychological burden on physicians, enabling them to achieve precise diagnosis and treatment through streamlined technology.

As early as the 2019 ICI Cardiovascular International Conference, ArteryFlow Technology’s AccuFFR product was awarded the 2019 Best Innovation Award in the field of cardiovascular medicine, under the leadership and support of CCI and Academician Ge Junbo.AccuFFR is a coronary stenosis functional assessment solution independently developed by ArteryFlow Technology. In addition to two AccuFFR series products, the latest launch also includes the AneuFlow® auxiliary diagnostic system for cerebral aneurysms.

Xiang Jianping leads a team of master’s and doctoral graduates from top-tier universities such as MIT and Imperial College London. Initially rooted in the field of cerebrovascular disease, he was later inspired by the concept of “integrated heart-brain intelligence” to strategically expand into the cardiovascular disease sector, which affects hundreds of millions of people.

Both stroke and coronary heart disease are cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, with vascular system pathology as their fundamental lesion and shared risk factors. Clinical evidence has confirmed the accuracy of imaging-based fractional flow reserve (FFR) technology in the functional assessment of coronary artery stenosis; therefore, functional assessment of intracranial vessels can also be explored.

The newly launched AneuFlow® auxiliary diagnostic system for cerebral aneurysms, throughThree-dimensional reconstruction of cranial medical images (3D DSA, CTA, MRA) is performed to obtain a 3D model of intracranial aneurysms. Alternatively, a 3D model of an intracranial aneurysm can be imported externally, and morphological and hemodynamic parameters are then calculated through morphological and computational fluid dynamics analyses.Furthermore, physicians can manually input clinical data on patients’ aneurysms to facilitate case management. Through this system, healthcare professionals can rapidly and non-invasively assess the risk of aneurysm rupture.

“As an increasing number of unruptured intracranial aneurysms are being detected, both clinicians and patients face the dilemma of how to manage them. It is not straightforward to determine whether to proceed with preemptive surgical intervention or opt for conservative management with regular follow-up before aneurysm rupture. AneuFlow® can provide evidence-based support for clinical decision-making.” Medical experts at the scene affirmed the product’s clinical value.

In the field of cardiovascular disease,AccuCT® utilizes ArteryFlow Technology’s proprietary rapid blood flow computation model to quickly and accurately calculate the FFR distribution across the entire coronary artery tree from existing CT images, enabling functional diagnosis of coronary stenosis and rapid screening of patients at risk for myocardial infarction.One of the persistent challenges in promoting FFRct has been speed. In medicine, speed equals life. ArteryFlow Technology’s products deliver results as quickly as possible. For instance, in left ventricular reconstruction, its AccuLV software automatically segments the endocardial and epicardial walls of the left ventricle on CTA images, accurately calculating ejection fraction and parameters at end-diastole and end-systole, thereby enabling rapid and effective assessment of cardiac function.

Another product, AccuAngio®, is a coronary functional assessment system based on coronary angiography, which is also capable ofNon-invasive FFR assessment of coronary stenosis enables quantitative analysis of myocardial ischemia, guiding medical professionals in accurately performing coronary interventional therapy.. Coronary angiography is relatively more accurate than coronary CTA and serves as the gold standard for the clinical diagnosis of coronary heart disease and for guiding interventional therapy.

Non-invasive and precise approaches will define the future direction of healthcare. ArteryFlow Technology leverages artificial intelligence to diagnose cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, empowering physicians to deliver precision medicine. With the launch of new products, ArteryFlow Technology has taken a solid step forward in its commercialization journey, positioning itself at the forefront of AI-assisted imaging diagnosis for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions.

Previously, Academician Ge Junbo was the first in China to propose the concept of pan-vascular medicine, the core of which is to view the entire vascular system as an integrated whole. Driven by Academician Ge’s initiative, ArteryFlow Technology has targeted the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular sector, which serves a population base of hundreds of millions in China. By leveraging artificial intelligence to empower solutions for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases—spanning screening, diagnosis, and surgical planning—ArteryFlow Technology has gradually built a comprehensive suite of diagnostic and therapeutic products over four years. Professor Liu Jianmin stated,“The cardiovascular and cerebrovascular products launched by ArteryFlow Technology embody the pan-vascular concept proposed by Academician Ge. As these products are implemented, the medical threshold will be lowered, making diagnosis and treatment simpler.”

Currently, China’s AI-driven healthcare sector is in a phase of rapid growth, with artificial intelligence already applied across multiple fields, including medical imaging, medical devices, new drug development, and health management. It is precisely through AI empowerment of radiology, enabling non-invasive disease diagnosis, that ArteryFlow Technology has built its functional assessment platform.

Professors Shen Li, Wan Shu, Liu Aihua, and other clinical experts discussed the development of artificial intelligence in the field of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, focusing on the practical needs and challenges encountered in clinical diagnosis and treatment. “Often, we face a critical question: whether a patient requires treatment. Relying solely on imaging analysis, we cannot make an accurate determination.”We need a system to comprehensively evaluate and assess patients to achieve precision therapy, which is a clinical necessity. The integration of artificial intelligence with imaging and hemodynamics provides an effective assessment method.”

Furthermore, to comprehensively assess a patient’s vascular status, evaluation should not be limited solely to the FFR metric.“In the future, ArteryFlow Technology may establish such a platform, incorporating additional parameters for disease diagnosis to benefit more patients.”Based on the pan-vascular concept, Academician Ge Junbo has placed high hopes on ArteryFlow Technology to achieve greater breakthroughs in the field of disease-assisted diagnosis.

As Professor Jiang Weijian stated, the name “ArteryFlow Technology” signifies “arterial blood surging forward.” From winning an award for its AccuFFR cardiovascular functional assessment system in 2019 to the market launch of its cerebrovascular and cardiovascular functional assessment products this year, ArteryFlow Technology has indeed been moving steadily forward.