While PCI is the guideline-recommended care for STEMI patients, 75 percent of U.S. hospitals currently do not have these capabilities, which has resulted in more patients requiring transfers to STEMI hospitals. Researchers have found that door-in to door-out times, a new clinical performance measure defined as the time from arrival to discharge at the first or STEMI referral hospital, were more than 30 minutes longer than those recommended.

The randomized, controlled RIVAL trial, presented in April at ACC.11, was expected to show a bleeding reduction with using radial access for PCI in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS). While the trial did not achieve its anticipated primary endpoint, transradial PCI may continue to gain utilization momentum if physicians succeed in deciphering how the results could impact their practice.

Much debate has surrounded which techniquemanual compression or vascular closureis best for hemostasis post-PCI. Now, newer generations of vascular closure devices (VCDs) have been proven to decrease length of stay, improve patient satisfaction and provide earlier time to ambulation. However, gaps in use still exist, due to questions about economic benefits and patient risks.

To add to the scores of studies that show racial disparities in healthcare, researchers in Michigan and California have found that black heart attack patients wait longer for advanced heart procedures compared with whites. However, these two studies concluded that these racial differences are not driven by race itself, but instead where the patients seek care.

The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Spectralytics in a patent infringement case that alleged that Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson company, willfully infringed upon Spectralytics' 277 coronary stent patent. The decision awarded Spectralytics $22.4 million and affirms a previous ruling by the District Court of Minnesota.

St. Jude Medical, through its recent $1.3 billion acquisition of AGA Medical, has filed lawsuits against Occlutech for patent infringement. The suits, which involve a total of three patents and seek injunctive relief and monetary damages, were filed in Germany and the U.K. at the District Court of Dusseldorf and the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Patents Court, respectively.

Using angioplasty to widen the jugular and azygos veins to improve blood flow to the brain could help prevent multiple sclerosis (MS) in patients with chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, according to the Society for Interventional Radiology (SIR). However, a multicenter trial is critical to understanding the condition and its possible treatment, the society noted.

Cordis, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, will discontinue manufacturing drug-eluting stents (DES), including Cypher and Cypher Select sirolimus-eluting stents, and also will stop development of its Nevo DES line to focus on other cardiovascular therapies.