Healthcare technology company Aclarion has added Roger Hartl, MD, professor of neurological surgery and director of spinal surgery at the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center in New York City and co-director of NewYork-Presbyterian Och Spine, as the 10th and final member of its key opinion leaders panel.
Aclarion has been working over the last 18 months to build a consortium of leaders to test its Nociscan solution for distinguishing between painful and non-painful discs in the lumbar spine.
The company intends for each of the 10 leaders to begin using the technology, tracking clinical results and advocating for payer coverage to all Nociscan patients, according to a Nov. 6 press release.
As of right now, Dr. Hartl is the second leader to gain access to an MRI center authorized to perform Nociscans, making New York City and Denver the two active sites.
Chronic low back pain is a leading cause of opioid addiction in the U.S. Nociscan is the first platform that noninvasively helps physicians distinguish between painful and non-painful discs by quantifying chemical biomarkers that are associated with disc pain. The data is then entered into an algorithm to determine if a disc may be a source of pain.
The company plans to launch MRI activations for the remaining key opinion leaders in the coming months.