May 28, 2008 - Adding noninvasive imaging to current risk-assessment protocols may identify more people who are at risk of developing heart disease, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.

Researchers used data from the UT Southwestern-led Dallas Heart Study to determine whether using computed tomography (CT) to scan patients' hearts for calcium deposits and blockages could identify more people at high risk for heart disease and who could benefit from cholesterol-lowering therapy.

May 28, 2008 – The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have clarified their recommendations for children taking medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), indicating that acquiring an ECG is a Class IIa recommendation but not mandatory to obtain.

May 28, 2008 - A federal jury found that Boston Scientific Corp. has infringed three patents owned by Medtronic, and awarded Medtronic $250 million in damages.

Medtronic sued Boston Scientific in 2006 asserting that Boston's Taxus Express2, Express2, Liberte, Maverick, Maverick2 and Quantum Maverick products infringed the Fitzmaurice and Anderson catheter patents owned by Medtronic. The trial began on Friday, May 16, 2008.

May 27, 2008 - Angiomax (bivalirudin) significantly improved net clinical adverse events by 24 percent as well as resulted in a reduction in overall mortality by 32 percent and cardiac mortality by 38 percent when compared to heparin plus routine glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor (GPI) within 30 days following primary angioplasty strategy, according to results from the HORIZONS-AMI trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

May 26, 2008 – Spectranetics introduced the new LLD EZ Lead Locking Device (LLD) for the removal of nonfunctional or infected pacing and defibrillation leads, designed to enable physicians to secure the entire lead creating traction to enable the removal process.

May 27, 2008 - Cook Medical (Cook) has received approval from the FDA for its Zenith TX2 Thoracic TAA Endovascular Graft, marking the expansion of Cook Medical’s portfolio of devices to treat aortic diseases.

May 27, 2008 - Vascular Solutions will partner with Radius Medical Technologies for the U.S. launch of the MICRO Elite Snare, a device designed for the retrieval and manipulation of foreign bodies located in the coronary and peripheral cardiovascular system and the extra-cranial neurovascular anatomy, which Vascular Solutions will distribute exclusively in the U.S.

Cook Medical's Zenith TX2 Thoracic TAA Endovascular Graft is designed for thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR).

Vascular Solutions is partnering with Radius Medical Technologies to distribute in the U.S. the new MICRO Elite Snare, a device designed for the retrieval and manipulation of foreign bodies located in the coronary and peripheral cardiovascular system and the extra-cranial neurovascular anatomy.

May 22, 2008 - Nassir Marrouche, M.D., and his research team from the University of Utah School of Medicine received the Eric N. Prystowsky Fellow Clinical Research award for their abstract on experimental studies showing how magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) angiograms can be effectively used during atrial fibrillation (AF) procedures.

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