BACKGROUND: Transplanted heart coronary artery disease (TxCAD) is the most frequent casue of death occuring > or =5 years after orthotopic heart transplantation (OHT). Considering three basic therapeutic approaches – percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), surgical revascularisation and retransplantation – PCI seems to be the superior method due to its safety and good short-term results, however, the long-term efficacy of PCI has been less well established. AIM: To evaluate long-term results of PCI in the treatment of OHT recipients with TxCAD.

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Indianapolis (Bloomberg News) — Johnson & Johnson’s planned $25.4 billion purchase of Indianapolis-based Guidant Corp. will get a four-month review from European Union regulators who want to examine whether the company would dominate the market for treatment of coronary and peripheral artery diseases and cardiac surgery.

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Objectives: Elective carotid stent implantation using a distal protection is increasing. In this article we describe an observation method for carotid plaque debris collection during carotid stenting.

Keywords: CAROTID PLAQUE DEBRIS; MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATION; HEMATOXYLIN-EOSIN (HE) STAIN; FILTERATION

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Authors report the primary and mid-term outcome of patients with long chronic iliac artery occlusions after percutaneous excimer-laser-assisted interventional recanalization.

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VANCOUVER, April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANPI, TSX: ANP) corporate partner Boston Scientific (“BSC”) today announced that six articles related to its pivotal TAXUS IV clinical trial were published in the April 19 edition of the prestigious Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC), with the launch of a special issue devoted to the TAXUS IV trial.

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Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a condition of use for the CYPHER(R) Sirolimus-eluting Coronary Stent, allowing patients receiving the stent to immediately undergo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) following implantation. Approval was granted after laboratory studies demonstrated the CYPHER(R) Stent is MRI-safe.

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Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have demonstrated that intracoronary brachytherapy is more efficacious than placebo in reducing death, myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization at long-term follow up of patients with in-stent restenosis.

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Objective: To assess the cost-effectiveness of drug-eluting stents compared to conventional stents for treatment of symptomatic coronary artery disease in UK Design: Cost-utility analysis of audit based patient sub-groups using a simple economic model. Setting: Tertiary care. Participants: Twelve month audit data for 2884 patients receiving percutaneous coronary intervention with stenting at the Cardiothoracic Centre-Liverpool between January 2000 and December 2002.

PubMed Abstract

Irish Cardiac Society Annual Scientific Meeting 2005
Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland
October 7 – 8, 2005

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Biophan Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB: BIPH), a developer of next-generation medical technology, yesterday announced results from testing of the Company’s patented technology that will enable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within vascular stents, allowing physicians for the first time to assess the health of stented arteries by means of non-invasive MRI technology. Biophan CEO Michael Weiner made the announcement.

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By Jeffrey J. Popma, MD
Director, Interventional Cardiology Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

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Federal regulators have approved Boston Scientific’s new Liberte heart stent, the company said Thursday.

Boston Scientific hopes sales of Liberte, a bare-metal stent that is not coated with drugs, will supplement Taxus Express2, the drug-coated stent credited with driving the medical device maker’s 62 percent sales growth last year.

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Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) yesterday announced that it is now acting as the exclusive distributor of the NexStent(TM) carotid stent and Monorail(TM) delivery system in Europe and certain other international markets. The NexStent(TM) Monorail(TM) system, developed and manufactured by EndoTex Interventional Systems, Inc., recently received CE Mark for commercialization in Europe and certain other international markets. It has not yet been approved for
commercialization in the United States.

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The Endeavor™ Drug Eluting Coronary Stent is an investigational device with an investigational drug (ABT-578) and is exclusively for clinical investigation.

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Here, a perivascular cuff to induce restenosis was constructed of a poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) formulation suitable for the controlled delivery of drugs. Placing the PCL cuff around the femoral artery, in vivo, resulted in reproducible restenosis-like lesions containing predominantly smooth muscle-actin positive cells.

Keywords: Controlled drug release; Local delivery; Drug-eluting stents; Poly(ε-caprolactone); Restenosis; Animal model

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