Acute mesenteric ischemia accounts for less than 1.5% of emergency department visits for abdominal pain but has a mortality rate of 55%, due in part to how difficult it can be to diagnose the condition early.

“Acute mesenteric ischemia is a potentially deadly but often underdiagnosed condition. Its early symptoms can resemble common gastrointestinal problems, and current diagnostic tools such as imaging tests are invasive, costly, and often too slow to enable timely treatment,” said senior author Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, Ph.D., MBBCH, a gastroenterologist in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Endoscopy in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine.

“We aimed to create a faster, safer, and more accessible way to detect this condition before permanent intestinal damage occurs.”