Vulnerable Plaque Study Begins

Enrollment is complete for a landmark study designed to increase clinical understanding of vulnerable plaque, the deadly, lipid-rich coronary plaque that ruptures without warning or symptoms and possibly the source of most heart attacks.

PROSPECT (Providing Regional Observations to Study Predictors of Events in the Coronary Tree) — an Abbott Vascular-sponsored study — will use novel intravascular imaging technology to correlate plaque characteristics, patient risk factors and biomarker measurements with subsequent heart attacks and other cardiac events. The objective is to equip physicians for identifying and treating at-risk patients before a heart attack occurs.

Gregg, Stone, M.D, professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, is the principal investigator of the PROSPECT study and will present baseline demographic and imaging data from the first group of enrolled patients during the TCT annual scientific sessions in October.

For more information visit www.abbott.com, or www.tct2006.com.