Accumetrics will feature its VerifyNow System at TCT 2008, including its comprehensive suite of assays so physicians can assess their patient’s response to antiplatelet therapy in five minutes or less using whole blood, closed tube samples and with no pipetting or sample preparation required.

Unlike statins, antihypertensives, anticoagulants, and other critical therapies, antiplatelet medications are given with the assumption that all patients respond equally, but they do not. Up to one third of patients on antiplatelet medications may not receive the expected inhibiting effect.

October 1, 2008 - Boston Scientific Corp. said today the U.S. District Court in Delaware has entered judgment against the company in a case involving a patent owned by Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific’s NIR stent product.

In the judgment, the judge awarded Johnson & Johnson damages in the amount of $406.7 million and pre-judgment interest in the amount of $296.1 million.

Boston Scientific said it will appeal the judgment.

October 1, 2008 - Abiomed Inc. recently completed shipment of its Impella 2.5 Cardiac Assist Device to its 100th U.S. hospital following its June 2008 FDA clearance for partial circulatory support for periods up to six hours.

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.

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