Emergency responders equipped with mobile stroke units can roughly halve the time it normally takes to get suspected stroke patients from the initial call for help to treatment decision, potentially increasing the number of patients able to receive life-saving, damage-reducing treatment.

Source: RadiologyEmergency endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) effectively treats potentially fatal ruptured aneurysms in the abdomen without major surgery, involves less recovery time and fewer discharges to inpatient care facilities, according to research presented March 27 at the annual meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology in San Francisco.

After nine years of waiting, the results are out on a trial evaluating whether device closure offered benefit over medical therapy alone for the prevention of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) in patent foramen ovale (PFO) patients. However, the CLOSURE I trial may have missed its mark, as it was found that undergoing an expensive device closure procedure may be no more effective than medical therapy.

Results from recent clinical trials on bare-metal stents, drug-eluting stents and stent grafts show promise as less invasive treatments for patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD), including patients with lesions in the femoropopliteal artery. Some interventional cardiologists look to stenting based on new technologies as the future standard of care. These advancements may broaden options for physicians and patients, but there is some debate as to whether they lead to an improved quality of life in the long run.

Does duration of diabetes impact a patient's risk for ischemic stroke? Yes, said researchers from Columbia University when they found that the risk of ischemic stroke increases 3 percent each year and triples when diabetes is present for 10 years or more. The study results were published March 1 in Stroke.

A drawn-out infringement suit over patented prosthetic vascular grafts has finally been settled, as a divided federal appeals court decided Feb. 10 for C. R. Bard over W. L. Gore in a $371 million judgment.

Researchers in Europe have designed and validated a simple, fast and cost-free scoring system to predict outcomes for ischemic stroke patients treated with intravenous alteplase. In their study published Feb. 7 in Neurology, the authors suggested the score could be used to identify patients who might benefit from add-on rescue strategies such as endovascular treatments or hypothermia, if the model holds up after further validation.

Revenues from the Stealth 360 system for treating peripheral artery disease helped Cardiovascular Systems achieve gains in the second quarter of fiscal 2012, the company reported. Net loss widened compared to the second quarter of the previous year.