Beyond the 6-Minute Walk

For over 40 years, the 6-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) has served as a standard measure of functional capacity in cardiopulmonary clinical trials, but its reliance on supervised 30-meter clinical hallways and its inherent variability have long frustrated researchers. Because traditional walk distance cannot easily differentiate true physiological changes from mere fluctuations in a patient’s daily effort, mood, or motivation, trials frequently suffer from diluted efficacy signals and a “ceiling effect” in highly functional patients. Enter Cardiac Effort, a novel and physiologically grounded digital biomarker calculated by dividing a patient’s total number of heartbeats by the distance they walk during a 6MWT.

By integrating continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) and accelerometry data from wearable chest sensors, Cardiac Effort acts as a physiological equalizer that significantly reduces test variability and enhances the detection of true treatment effects. This metric is rapidly proving its value in cardiovascular drug development by demonstrating strong correlations with critical clinical indicators, including stroke volume, right ventricular function, NT-proBNP levels, and established clinical risk scores. Furthermore, Cardiac Effort “levels the playing field” between different testing environments, maintaining stable measurements whether a patient is walking in a 90-foot clinic hallway or taking a remote, unsupervised test in their living room.

Join this webinar to discover how integrating Cardiac Effort can optimize your clinical endpoints, enrich trial enrollment, and modernize your cardiovascular development programs.

Featured Speakers: 

Melissa Ceruolo – VP Engineering & Biomarker Analytics, Medidata

Daniel Lachant – Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center

Gabriel Nallathambi – Senior Director, Algorithm and Data Science, VitalConnect

Dzmitry Kaliukhovich – Senior Principal Data Scientist II, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine Integration, Dexcom

Candice Taguibao – Associate Director, Digital Medicine Society (DiMe)