October 1, 2008 - Cardiothoracic surgeon Husam H. Balkhy, M.D., chairman of the department of cardiothoracic surgery at The Wisconsin Heart Hospital, performed the first total connector cardiac bypass procedure in the U.S., without needing to arrest the heart, using Cardica's automated systems to connect the bypass graft vessels.

October 1, 2008 - Evalve Inc. announced yesterday the completion of randomized enrollment in the Endovascular Valve Edge-to-Edge REpair STudy (EVEREST), which is evaluating the MitraClip system as a nonsurgical repair option for patients suffering from mitral regurgitation (MR), the most common type of heart valve insufficiency in the U.S. affecting millions of people worldwide.

October 1, 2008 - The American Heart Association recommends heart patients be screened for depression, based on studies that show depression is about three times more common in patients following a heart attack than in the general community.
The Association's first scientific statement on depression and coronary heart disease was published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The recommendations, which are endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, include:
- early and repeated screening for depression in heart patients;

October 1, 2008 – A new FDA analysis released yesterday provides new evidence that the use of statins does not increase incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

The FDA analysis, undertaken after the agency received a higher than expected number of reports of ALS in patients on statins, is based on data from 41 long-term controlled clinical trials. The results showed no increased incidence of the disease in patients treated with a statin compared with placebo.

September 30, 2008 - The HeartAssist 5 Pediatric VAD will be introduced for the first time in the U.S. Oct. 2-4 at the 16th annual meeting of the International Society for Rotary Blood Pumps (ISRBP) in Houston.

September 30, 2008 – Czech Republic-based Tryton Medical Inc. said today it launched a novel Side Branch Stent System in Europe.

Tryton’s Side Branch Stent System is designed to offer a dedicated strategy for treating atherosclerotic lesions at the site of a bifurcation. The system will be available first in the Netherlands, with additional European countries to follow in the coming months. TOP Medical has partnered with Tryton to distribute the device in the Netherlands.

September 30, 2008 – The FDA said preliminary safety findings from a clinical trial conducted in Germany investigating the use of epoetin alfa to treat acute ischemic stroke show the drug may cause death.

September 30, 2008 - New research shows cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) reduced the time to first heart failure hospitalization or death by nearly half in patients with mild heart failure, and devices equipped with OptiVol Fluid Status Monitoring identified patients who were at a significantly higher risk (3.5 times) of having a heart failure event in the near future.

September 30, 2008 - Endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) yields better results than open surgical repair (OSR) in high-risk patients with similar costs, according to a one-year trial study, which appears in the October issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery, published by the Society for Vascular Surgery.

September 26, 2008 - TyRx Inc. announced today the launch of AIGISRX ICD, an anti-bacterial envelope developed to help reduce surgical site infections and create a stable environment for implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs).

The launch of AIGISRX ICD extends TyRx's AIGISRX CRMD (cardiac rhythm management device) platform to the implantable cardioverter defibrillator market. The AIGISRX CRMD platform also includes AIGISRX PM, the Company's anti-bacterial coated mesh designed specifically for implanted pacemakers.

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