Covidien announced it has received CE Mark approval for its Stellarex drug-coated angioplasty balloon (DCB).

Medtronic's roughly $43 billion acquisition and merger with Covidien has been widely discussed in the media for its U.S. Federal tax implications, but it's also creating a stronger leading player in one of the fastest growing device markets, according to Kalorama Information.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "MediPoint: Nuclear Imaging - PET and SPECT Equipment - Global Analysis and Market Forecasts" report to their offering

Biotronik announced the publication of new findings from the REPLACE Registry in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology. The Biotronik-sponsored REPLACE Registry was the first worldwide study to examine complications related to pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) replacement.

Discussions regarding late-breaking cardiovascular clinical trials among leading medical scientists are placing considerable emphasis on individualized patient care, particularly in the area of dual antiplatelet therapy, according to an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData.

A study that identifies new heart attack risk factors and supports the use of a blood test for detection in patients will be published in the AACE (American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists) Journal.

InspireMD, Inc. announced results from two important clinical trials. Thirty-day results from the MASTER II trial, which enrolled 310 of a planned 1,114 patients were presented at a major cardiology congress in Israel in December. The trial was suspended in October 2014 as a result of a corporate shift in strategy to a next-generation MGuard drug eluting stent (DES) platform. The company also announced ipsilateral diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) results from the CARENET Trial for the CGuard system which successfully completed enrollment in July.

The issue of sudden cardiac death has long been a concern of heart specialists, for cardiac arrest often hits young, apparently healthy and athletic people out of the blue.