Press Releases

Volcano Corporation (NASDAQ: VOLC), a leading company focused on improving patient and economic outcomes on a global basis by developing and delivering innovative minimally invasive coronary and peripheral visualization, physiology diagnostics and therapies, today announced that more than 1,000 systems have been activated with its instant wave-Free Ratio™, or iFR® Modality software, allowing physicians and patients around the globe to benefit from the simplified workflow, and reduced need for hyperemic agents.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), as part of a research partnership with the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), today issued a Request for Applications (RFA) to study how to improve blood pressure control among populations at highest risk for suffering hypertension-related strokes, heart attacks, and other cardiovascular events.

One of medicine's most prominent experts in sudden cardiac arrest has received a new $2.36 million grant to study how to better predict the deadly heart condition that kills an estimated 300,000 Americans each year.

iRhythm Technologies, Inc., a leading digital health care solutions company focusing on the advancement of cardiac care, today announced that it has secured a CE mark (Conformité Européenne) for the ZIO Service, enabling the company to market its long-term continuous heart monitoring solution in Europe. The company also announced its first international market entry through an exclusive agreement with CardioLogic Ltd, which will make the ZIO Service available to patients throughout the United Kingdom to improve the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (Afib) and other cardiac arrhythmias. Financial terms were not disclosed

Tendyne Holdings, Inc. ("Tendyne"), a privately held clinical stage medical device company, announced today that the Tendyne Transcatheter Mitral Valve system has been successfully implanted in three patients.

Lombard Medical, Inc., a medical device company focused on Endovascular Aneurysm Repair (EVAR) of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs), today presented efficacy and safety data from the two-year follow up of the U.S. PYTHAGORAS pre-marketing approval (PMA) trial of Aorfix™, the first and only endovascular stent graft with global approvals for the treatment of patients with aortic neck angulations up to 90 degrees.

Researchers testing Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Inc. experimental HNO prodrugs presented data demonstrating that HNO improves cardiac function in animal models of diastolic heart failure, and separately that an orally administered HNO prodrug produces the same attractive hemodynamic improvements previously demonstrated with intravenous infusion.

New data on the investigational antidote idarucizumab show that it can reverse the effect of the oral anticoagulant Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate) on both blood coagulation and the blood clotting mechanism. In a study in healthy volunteers, administration of idarucizumab after initial pre-treatment with Pradaxa was shown to restore systemic blood coagulation and re-enable the formation of fibrin, a key component of the blood clotting mechanism. This is the first time that an antidote to a novel oral anticoagulant (NOAC) has demonstrated such an effect. The findings were presented during the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2014. The antidote is still under investigation and has not yet been approved for clinical use.

Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT) today announced new data supporting the clinical and economic value of its cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices for the treatment of heart failure, including a significant reduction in all-cause 30-day readmissions after heart failure hospitalizations. Additionally, heart failure patients who benefited early from CRT lived longer and consumed fewer hospital resources than patients who did not experience early benefit from the therapy. These new data were featured in separate presentations at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014 in Chicago.

In the first successful U.S. pivotal trial of a bioabsorbable polymer stent, the Boston Scientific SYNERGY Everolimus-Eluting Bioabsorbable Polymer Platinum Chromium Coronary Stent System met its primary endpoint in this non-inferiority study, which evaluated the one-year rate of target lesion failure (TLF).

Two new real-world data analyses presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2014 independently demonstrate that routine treatment with Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate) was associated with fewer major bleeds and strokes compared to warfarin. The results of both studies, which involved over 60,000 atrial fibrillation (AF) patients in the US, demonstrate that the safety and effectiveness profile of Pradaxa treatment seen during the RE-LY clinical trial can be achieved in broad patient populations receiving routine clinical care for stroke prevention. One analysis was conducted by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, using commercial US health insurance databases, and the second analysis was conducted by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, using the US Department of Defense Military Health System database. In the US, the licensed doses for dabigatran etexilate are 150mg twice daily and 75mg* twice daily to reduce the risk of stroke and systemic embolism in adult patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation.

Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. announced that its Dose Tracking System (DTS) was awarded the coveted Innovative Technology designation by Novation at its Innovative Technology Expo on Sept. 10, 2014, at the Irving Convention Center, Irving, Texas.

MedStar Heart Institute at MedStar Washington Hospital Center long ago earned the reputation as the best heart hospital in the region. Now, it's one better.

ACE is proud to announce that four new Pennsylvania facilities have received accreditation for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) services. To receive PCI accreditation, facilities without onsite open-heart surgery must meet the highest standards of PCI care as defined both by ACE and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

New data presented today at the American Heart Association (AHA) 2014 Scientific Sessions showed once-daily XARELTO® (rivaroxaban) is associated with significantly fewer hospitalization days and outpatient visits compared to warfarin in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Corresponding hospitalization and outpatient healthcare costs were also significantly lower for XARELTO® compared to warfarin in NVAF patients, according to longitudinal, real-world findings from this observational study.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced interim findings from an analysis of two health insurance databases showing that in routine care, non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients treated with Pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) had fewer strokes and fewer major bleeding events compared to patients treated with warfarin. The data were described in a poster presentation at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2014.

When it comes to hearts, men and women are not created equally. Women who have experienced a heart attack have a higher risk of a subsequent heart attack, or death, compared to men, according to the American Heart Association. To help women live long and well with heart disease, the Cigna Foundation today announced a $100,000 World of Difference grant to New York University College of Nursing (NYUCN) to pilot and test Helping Women Help Themselves to Improve Heart Health.

Fatigue, increased irritability, and feeling demoralized, may raise a healthy man or woman's risk of first-time cardiovascular disease by 36 percent, according to a study led by researchers at Mount Sinai St. Luke's and Mount Sinai Roosevelt hospitals presented on Nov. 17 at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014 in Chicago, IL.

At the 2014 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Chicago, Ill., Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation Research Cardiologist Dr. Michael Miedema gave a presentation entitled "The Implications of the Recent American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Guidelines for the Treatment of Blood Cholesterol on a Rural Community: The Heart of New Ulm Project."

Obesity is a known risk factor for atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm disorder.

The American Heart Association today presented its Research Achievement Award for 2014 to Shaun R. Coughlin, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, “for transcendent discoveries of cellular signaling mechanisms that control blood platelet activation and clot formation, findings that have led to a new medical therapy for preventing heart attacks and strokes.”