Congresses and Meetings

Medtronic, Inc. has synchronised the U.S. launch of the recently FDA cleared Endurant® II AAA Stent Graft System with the Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Annual Meeting being held right now. The company claims its new iteration enhances access and ease of use compared with the first generation product.

A one day conference entitled Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is being held this Friday in Cardiff, Wales.

Zimmer Holdings Inc chose last week’s EFORT congress at which to launch its Sidus™ Stem-Free Shoulder system which it claims is ideal for patients with early to mid-stage osteoarthritis.

Last week saw the holding of the European Stroke Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, at which event Stryker announced the results of the TREVO 2 clinical trial comparing its Trevo® clot removal device with its current Merci® product.

According to study results presented at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) 21st Annual Scientific and Clinical Congress in Philadelphia, Medtronic’s Resolute® drug-eluting stent (DES) from Medtronic, Inc. yields strong performance in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients both with and without diabetes through two years of follow-up.

Medical Device news roundup for week ending May 25th.

Biotronik’s press department was in overdrive at EuroPCR last week, announcing that twelve-month results from the BIOSOLVE-I study with the DRug Eluting Absorbable Metal Scaffold (DREAMS) demonstrate safety and confirm vessel vasomotion.

Another press release from Biotronik following last week’s EuroPCR meeting in Paris talks of six-month results from the DELUX registry demonstrating excellent safety and efficacy results for the Pantera Lux Paclitaxel Releasing Balloon.

Elsevier Business Intelligence (EBI), publisher of “The Gray Sheet”, is holding its IN³ Medical Device 360° at the Hyatt Regency Boston, June 27-29 2012.

Combining the various spinal societies into one big event every four years has the potential to be a disaster, but Spineweek has worked well in the past and seems to be a popular solution to the demands of time and money placed on potential delegates and industry alike.

Results presented at EuroPCR demonstrate minimally invasive “Parachute” device from CardioKinetix could transform treatment options for patients as two year results suggest significant improvement in condition.

We’re keen to keep you informed of future events in your chosen, or related specialty. To that end we’ve trawled the heart congresses taking place in the next twelve months and provided this helpful list with links.

The big surprise in this new study, published at AANA this week, is that it’s taken so long for researchers to put a figure on the cost savings to be had in saline consumption alone by using an inflow/outflow computer controlled arthroscopic pump rather than inflow only. Maybe its just a sign of the times that it’s even become an issue.

It’s been a fascinatingly diverse week with a steady flow of medical device news. It’s notably been a week containing a cardiovascular congress in Paris (EuroPCR) and an arthroscopy congress in Orlando (AANA). Anyway, it’s online right now.

Not satisfied with just drug elution as a means of reducing neointimal hyperplasia, OrbusNeich has built in an Endothelial Progenitor Cell capture coating which appears in this blinded study to improve neointimal appearance at 9 months.

Edwards Lifesciences’ Sapien XT may not be FDA cleared, but in Europe at least the company is generating a nice body of data suggesting that at least in the short term the valve performs well in high risk patients. These data have been presented at EuroPCR 2012 in Paris this week.