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July 06, 2003 at 08:00 PM
Technology Tool Claims To Predict Disease Onset And Mortality
By Ara C. Trembly
Are you more or less likely than the average person to fall victim to a life-threatening disease or to die within the next 10 years?
Many of us would like to know the answer to that question–and life insurers, in particular, would love to know.
The developers of a new statistical technology believe they have the answers in the form of a tool that medical professionals and life insurers can use to rate risks.
BioSignia Inc., a health care information technology firm based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., says it has developed a tool–called Mortality Assessment Technology (MAT)–that can “improve the discriminating power, precision and efficiency of underwriting analysis.”
According to Scott Van Slyck, director of business development, life insurance, for BioSignia, the technology is designed for use by life insurance underwriters in evaluating “unimpaired” cases.
“BioSignia has developed a novel statistical technology to detect the subtle changes in physiology that precede disease onset,” the company says. The tool depends on what BioSignia calls Synthesis Analysis, a patented statistical method that provides disease prediction equations by combining research findings on each risk factor from disparate studies in medical literature.
Van Slyck says the technology predicts the probability of onset of chronic diseases “when the applicant appears to be healthy.” Asked how far in advance of onset the predictions can be made, he notes that, “in general,” it can be up to 10 years.
The company says it has developed disease prediction models for coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and osteoporosis.
These conditions constitute “an overwhelming majority of the main causes of death in the U.S., and an even larger percentage of premature death,” according to the company.
Minimum input requirements include an individuals age, height, weight, gender, systolic blood pressure and a routine blood profile, the company explains. Among the biomarkers used to evaluate risk of future diseases are cholesterol, triglyceride and glucose levels, says Van Slyck.
Other factors used include family history of the stated conditions, smoking habits and, for women, number of births, age at menopause and hormone replacement therapy usage, says BioSignia.
MAT involves two basic steps, BioSignia notes. First, there is a process of calculating multiple disease or condition prediction equations. The results are probabilities of onset for each specific disease or condition within a specific period of time.
Second, these disease-specific probabilities are converted into a predicted mortality ratio (PMR). The PMR is a weighted average of mortality ratios that can be used to predict the future mortality for “subjects who do not show overt clinical impairment,” the company adds.
While the MAT has been available from BioSignia to health care professionals in the form of a product called Know Your Number for more than two years, the life insurance version of the technology is about nine months old, says Van Slyck.
Doctors and other health professionals pay a fee for the service, which is “gaining a lot of momentum,” states Van Slyck. “A lot of self-insured employees are interested, because it decreases their risks and their costs.”
